Information and Technology Action Item

DATE:	Tuesday, April 29, 2014
TO:	School Board Members
FROM:	MaryEllen Elia, Superintendent
SUBJECT / RECOMMENDATIONS
Approve the Agreement for Technical Services with NCS Pearson, Inc. for Training on Item Writing and Scoring for New Item Types  (Information and Technology Division)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of this professional development is to provide information on new standards and item types to 25 assessment experts from Hillsborough County’s Test Development Center and Curriculum and Instruction staff. These experts will then be better able to provide actionable feedback to teacher/authors of assessment content and to prepare teachers to develop/revise assessment content and build tests consistent with educational trends including changes in state standards.
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
• Align financial resources to support the district’s strategic goals • Demonstrate best financial practices
FINANCIAL IMPACT (Budgeted:  Yes)
The cost of this training is $20,000, and is allocated from the Assessment and Accountability Budget.
EVALUATION
Participants will evaluate the training in regards to the direct impact upon their assessment practices and ability to create formative and summative assessments and facilitate teachers involved in item writing. Formative assessments created for the 2014-2015 school year will be evaluated in terms of validity, reliability, correlation to state testing where appropriate, and item statistics from both classical test theory and item response theory.
SUBMITTED BY:  Samuel R. Whitten, Director, Assessment and Accountability

Anna L. Brown, Ed.D.		Gretchen Saunders
Chief Information and Technology Officer and Project Director, Empowering Effective Teachers (813) 272-4600		Chief Business Officer (813) 272-4270
		A 6.05
Hillsborough County Public Schools (Florida) * Mtg.#20140429_631 (Board Meeting) * Section A Item# 6.05