Dive Brief:

• Common Core testing consortium PARCC has hired testing giant Pearson for help implementing the national assessments.  
• According to Education Week, Pearson will create some test questions and forms, provide participating schools with the the paper and online versions of the tests, meet with states to determine cut scores, and report and analyze the scores.  
• The exact contract figure is unknown and depends ultimately on how many states opt into PARCC; however, a PARCC representative told Education Week that the initiative was of “unprecedented scale, in terms of states coming together." 

Dive Insight: 

This is not Pearson's first contract with PARCC. According to the testing consortium, Pearson has already been contracted three times for various phases in the implementation of the Common Core exams.  

Continued dependence on big publishing powerhouses like Pearson reminded the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss of a 2012 prediction by FairTest (also known as the National Center for Fair & Open Testing).  

As Strauss wrote, "I noted recently that two years ago the nonprofit group FairTest predicted that despite promises by policymakers that competition and innovation would result from school reform, it would be the same old education firms that would wind up with the big Common Core-related contracts. FairTest got that right."