Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

"Pearson is developing performance-based assessments for all grades..."Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland:

Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland: "Pearson is developing performance-based assessments for all grades...":

"Pearson is developing performance-based assessments for all grades..."





That Pearson will be developing the performance-based assessments for all grades using Curriculum 2.0 is just one of many fun facts that can be gleaned from the Request for Proposal for the Project North Star Evaluator.


Project North Star is also known as the Pearson-MCPS Curriculum or Curriculum 2.0.
Call it what you like, the questions and answers below tell a lot about the Pearson-MCPS curriculum project. The questions and answers were part of the Request for Proposal for a contract for a project evaluator. Through this Q&A we also learn that 8 companies were interested in bidding on this contract.

Here's one of the Q and A's:
Question 43:  In the i3 proposal, it indicates that the 2009-2010 school year will serve as a baseline year for student achievement analysis, but the RFP indicates that this current school year (2010-2011) will serve as a baseline. Please clarify.
Answer:  Voluntary implementation of North Star in MCPS began in 2009-2010.  However, the grant was not awarded until September 2010, therefore, baseline year has not been established.


Project North Star RFT

The Board of Education ultimately awarded the contract (see page 11 at link) to evaluate Project North Star to RMC Research Corporation for$249,905.