Posts published on April 7, 2010

New Federal Grant Competition Encourages Colleges To Use Secondary School Assessments For Placement

 Secretary Duncan release guidance for a 350 million competition to design and inplement new secondary school assessments. Here is the college linkage as reported by Education Week blogger Michele McNeil in her useful k-12 politics blog :

According to the final regulations out today, a consortium, to be eligible for the awards, must be at least 15 states big. The department is expecting to give out one to two awards, at around $160 million each, according to the application materials. For insight into what these assessments might look like, read my colleague Catherine Gewertz’s story on the run-up to the competition.

Even as EdWeek reporters begin wading through the 85 pages of regulations and even more hoops in application materials, intrepid Teacher Beat reporter Stephen Sawchuk already has found one noteworthy item about this competition: If states get letters of support from their colleges and universities, saying, for example, that they’ll use these tests to exempt students from remedial work, then states will get bonus points in the competition