Interim test change nearer for district

The Little Rock School District is making a move to a new system for measuring the academic progress of students during the course of a school year.

The NWEA MAP Suite of tests will replace the interim assessments produced by ACT Inc. if Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key approves the recent recommendation by the district’s Community Advisory Board.

Key serves as the school board and final decision-maker in the state-controlled district.

NWEA, a 40-year-old nonprofit testing company based in Oregon, was among a dozen companies that responded to the district’s request for proposals for online, interim tests. The district’s staff selected the testing program, which is a relatively common one in other school systems in the state and nation, after extensive reviews by teachers, principals and central office adminstrators in recent weeks.

The new interim assessments would be administered three times a year in grades three through 12 The district is already using the NWEA system for kindergarten through second grade.

The district is planning a three-year contract in which the costs in the first, most expensive year are not to exceed $220,000, Danyell Cummings, the district’s director of testing, said.

The district will continue to administer the state-mandated ACT Aspire exams in math, literacy and science at the end of every spring in third through 10th grades.