Dive Brief:
- Florida signed a six-year, $220-million contract with the American Institute for Research (AIR) for the development of its new state test, which will be aligned to the Common Core.
- Up until September, Florida intended to use the multi-state consortium, The Partnership for Assessment of College and Career Readiness (PARCC), but Republican Gov. Rick Scott summoned other options when concerns of federal overreach emerged.
- The new test, which will be available in the 2014-2015 school year, will have less multiple choice questions and instead require students to write and show their work, according to the Florida Department of Education.
Dive Insight:
While Florida chose not to go with PARCC in order to appease local lawmakers citing federal overreach, the state must still deal with critics of the Common Core who feel AIR is ultimately not too different. Currently in the United States, there are two multi-state testing consortiums — PARCC and Smarter Balanced — that have gained traction. While AIR is neither of these, it did play a small role in the development of Smarter Balanced (they were a subcontractor to McGraw-Hill and played a role in the test delivery), which has some wary of what it represents. Despite these crossovers, Florida maintains AIR is unique and that there won’t be any questions on the Florida national test that are also being used by the national consortiums.
