By Catherine Gewertz
The World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment Consortium, one of two groups of states that are designing common-core-aligned English-language proficiency tests, has chosen Data Recognition Corp. to score the new assessment it plans to debut in 2015-16.
The announcement on Thursday caps a procurement process, led by the University of Wisconsin, for a vendor to print, distribute and score the consortium’s ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 test, and to produce score reports for it.
The 35-state consortium field-tested the new assessment last spring. DRC and other vendors worked to develop that online assessment, according to WIDA spokesman Scott Gomer.
Until now, the consortium has used MetriTech to print, distribute, and score the paper-based ACCESS tests, and to produce score reports. That work continues through 2014-15. The new five-year contract with DRC means that the Maple Grove, Minn.-based company will assume those responsibilities for both the paper and the online versions of the test in the 2015-16 school year, Gomer said.
WIDA said that more details will be forthcoming about the transition to the new test in 2015-16, but that there will be no changes in the 2014-15 administration of the ACCESS test.