Tennessee’s first Common Core-aligned standardized assessment will most likely be developed by Measurement Incorporated, according to a letter from Gov. Bill Haslam and Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman to the five testing vendors who vied for the state’s contract.
The letter says that North Carolina-based Measurement Incorporated has not accepted its offer, and the state reserves the right to reject the company’s final proposal.
Pearson and McGraw-Hill, the two largest testing corporations in the country, confirmed to Chalkbeat that they submitted bids. The state didn’t reveal the identity of the other candidates.
In September, Chalkbeat profiled some potential vendors, but didn’t include Measurement Inc., which accounted for just 6 percent of the testing market in 2012, according to a report from the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings. Competitors Pearson and McGraw-Hill accounted for 36 and 18 percent of the testing market, respectively.
Tennessee was supposed to roll out a test that’s being developed by a national nonprofit, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), this year. Instead, the legislature voted to stick with the TCAP test for 2015-2016, and open up a bidding process for a new test vendor.
Applications were due Sept. 12, and were reviewed by a committee of educators and government officials whose identities have still not been disclosed by the state.