Lastest News

$200 Million Now Available for Race to the Top Round Three

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Nine round two finalists eligible to apply for funding to further K-12 reform and STEM

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"Starting this week, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina can apply for a share of the $200 million�Race to the Top round three fund. The nine round two finalists are invited to submit applications tailored to support a portion of their Race to the Top plan, including a meaningful investment in advancing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

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U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, 'Race to the Top round three will enable these nine states to further their reform efforts already underway and help them get better faster.'

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States will apply in two parts. First, applicants will submit a portfolio of assurances confirming their commitment to comprehensively reform education across their state. Assurances will include information such as state funding for education and efforts to enhance data systems, raise academic standards, and improve evaluation systems.

Once assurances are reviewed and approved by the Department, states will be eligible to submit part two, a detailed plan and budget explaining how the selected reform effort will have a broader impact in supporting student learning and improving STEM education." *

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For more:� http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/200-million-now-available-race-top-round-three

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*U.S. Department of Education Website, Ed.gov, 11/16/11.

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Press & Sun Bulletin Features TestWiz on Front Page

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

"Binghamton schools put data program to the test

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Beth Bidwell calls the wall at Binghamton's Horace Mann Elementary School "the data wall."

Posted on the wall in the room off the school's main office are computer printouts with data analyzing how students performed on benchmark assessments measuring their English and math skills.

The information is generated by TestWiz software, a Web-based testing analysis and reporting tool, being phased in by the city school district. The software can track how individual students and an entire class are doing over time on the benchmark assessments given to the school district.

More than that, the software can analyze how different demographic groups are performing and analyze what students got right and wrong to identify gaps in student performance, said Tonia Thompson, director of planning and evaluation for the district.

Currently, teachers in grades K-5 in all seven of Binghamton's elementary schools can access the data, but the district plans to expand this access to teachers in all grades. Teachers also meet as frequently as every six weeks in "data huddles" to analyze the data."*

To learn more about TestWiz click here or contact us at help@testwiz.com.

*Written by George Basler at pressconnects.com, April 26, 2011.

Manage the New Accountability Requirements with TestWiz

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Race to the Top's accountability requirements mandate that teacher and school leader effectiveness must be monitored via annual performance evaluations.�Some states have clarified what measures can be used, and others are in the process of defining them.�But whether your district has selected a third-party assessment or decides to administer a locally created test, TestWiz can support your efforts.

Through a vast array of online reporting capabilities, our assessment solution provides charts, graphs and lists that can be filtered by demographic, intervention, performance level, or other customized sub-groups.�Users can also view results by individual student, class, school or district.

TestWiz can accommodate a wide variety of assessments that can be used for teacher and principal accountability.� Most tests scored outside of TestWiz can be imported, for comprehensive analysis and to assist in targeting instruction.�If needed, TestWiz can also be a repository whereby data can be stored from multiple assessments such as State, local and literacy tests in a single place.�Even more critical, TestWiz provides teachers with frequent and detailed information on how their students are performing so they may target their instruction quickly.

TestWiz can also support your formative assessment program. Users can create local tests that are Common Core aligned using NWEA's Formative Assessment Item Bank, and can be administered via paper & pencil, online, or a combination of both.

We invite you take a look at our assessment solution and find out how TestWiz can enhance your accountability program and improve student performance.

For more information or to see a demo, please contact us at�info@certicasolutions.com or 877.456.8949.

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Massachusetts Elementary Teachers Must Now Pass Math Test

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

"Candidates to teach elementary school in Massachusetts will now need to pass both a general knowledge test and a math proficiency test to earn their license, even though 3 out of 4 failed the new math section when the test was given for the first time in March.

'To raise student achievement in math we must strengthen the math knowledge of our teachers,' said Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester. 'This is an assessment that will ensure that aspiring teachers have a deep understanding of math concepts and how what they teach in the early grades connects to the more advanced math their students will eventually have to master.'

The state says it is the first state in the country to institute a math-specific proficiency exam for elementary certification. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted in 2007 to require new elementary and special education teachers to pass a test of math proficiency to improve the level of math education students receive in early grades.

Recently the board ruled that for the next three years teacher candidates who score between 227 and 239 out of 300 points on the test will earn their preliminary or initial license. They will then be required to score at least a 240 on a retest over the next five years before renewing their license or moving to the next stage of licensure."*

To read more: Click here

For more on TestWiz: Click here

* Educational Research Newsletters & Webinars http://www.ernweb.com

TestWiz Assessment Suite Supports Common Core State Standards

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Certica Solutions announced today that its TestWiz™ student assessment suite now provides functionality to create and administer assessments online, and to analyze those results independently or with other assessment results. The introduction of online assessment, in combination with a rich set of test items available in TestWiz, is the latest advance in Certica's commitment to providing educators with local assessments which are aligned with the Common Core State Standards.

Press Release: click here

For more on TestWiz: click here

Certica Solutions Acquires dataMetrics Software

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Massachusetts Software Companies Guide P-12 Education Performance and Accountability

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WAKEFIELD, Mass., June 8, 2011 - Certica Solutions, a leading provider of P-12 education performance management solutions, today announced that it has acquired the business and assets of dataMetrics Software, the provider of TestWiz™, a prominent student assessment application suite.

Both companies are based in Massachusetts and have, combined, more than 200 direct school district customers nationwide, and an additional 300 school district and private school customers through reselling partners such as Pearson, ERB and several New York State Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES).

Certica Solutions' flagship software application, Certify™, enables school districts to monitor accountability, optimize funding, improve compliance reporting and ensure accurate decision-making, by automating and streamlining data management and reporting processes. Certica entered the school district market in 2006, having previously worked with the U.S. Department of Education in the development of a national education data collection system.

dataMetrics Software, founded in 1995, allows school districts to improve instruction and assess teacher effectiveness by analyzing multiple student assessments simultaneously and tracking student progress over time. The company's TestWiz software scans, scores, processes and reports a variety of local, state and standardized assessments - and allows districts and teachers to create their own formative and local tests using either their own test items or items from the nationally recognized ETS item bank.

Both Certica and dataMetrics have felt the positive impact of federal ARRA stimulus funding in the past two years. Further, the market for education software providers continues to strengthen, as the evolution of No Child Left Behind legislation and federal education reform initiatives, such as Race to the Top, have brought increased attention to the correlation between student achievement and teacher performance - significant new ground in education accountability that Certica and dataMetrics both already address.

The combination of Certica and dataMetrics will provide school districts with a broader set of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to track and analyze student, school and teacher data, while providing a foundation for future application expansion to address other district performance management areas. Additionally, by leveraging Certica's sales and marketing capability, the acquisition will expand the geographic base of TestWiz customers, which is currently concentrated in a few states.

Said Mark Rankovic, Certica Solutions' president and chief executive officer, "we are thrilled to be bringing together the Certica and dataMetrics teams. dataMetrics has a rich history of success, a loyal user base, and a keen understanding of trends in student assessment which has led the company to develop product capabilities that meet school districts' critical needs."

Said Naomi Menikoff, dataMetrics' president and founder, "we are committed to empowering teachers and administrators to make data-driven decisions which improve student outcomes. We have seen that Certica has a passion for excellence in education which we believe will drive the success of the combined companies." Menikoff will remain with the company in an executive business development role, guiding the combined team in the areas of market strategy and product management, for at least a year while she plans for retirement.

Certica Solutions' acquisition of dataMetrics Software is effective immediately. Company headquarters will be located in Wakefield, Massachusetts and dataMetrics' Harvard, Massachusetts, office will be retained.

For more information about Certica Solutions, go to www.certicasolutions.com, or reach us at info@certicasolutions.com or 877.255.4515 x262.

For more information about TestWiz, go to www.TestWiz.com, or reach us at help@testwiz.com or 877.456.8949.

Second Round of i3 Provides $150 Million to Continue Scaling-Up

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

"The U.S. Department of Education announced that $150 million will be available for the next round of Investing in Innovation (i3) grants to continue support for evidence-based practices in education. Individual school districts, groups of districts, and nonprofits in partnership with districts or a consortium of schools are invited to apply.

Award amounts have been adjusted to ensure that applicants have sufficient funding to carry out program goals while enabling the Department to fund as many high-quality applications as possible. Grants will be available within the same three categories as in round one:

Up to $25 million each will be available for Scale-up grants to applicants with the strongest evidence and track records of success;
Up to $15 million each will be available for Validation grants to verify effectiveness for programs with moderate levels of evidence;
Up to $3 million each will be available for Development grants to support new and high-potential practices whose impact should be studied further."*

For more on the article: click here

To learn more about TestWiz: click here

*U. S. Department of Education Press Release, June 3, 2011 http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases

Nine Finalist States Are Now Eligible to Compete for Race to the Top Funding

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

"The U.S. Department of Education announced today that nine finalist states that did not win grants in the first two rounds of Race to the Top (RTT) will be eligible to compete for $200 million in additional funds this year. Applications will be available in the early fall.

The nine states, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and South Carolina, can seek grants ranging from $10 million to $50 million, depending on state size and the final number of grants. Given that these grants are smaller than the ones originally applied for, states will work with the U.S. Department of Education to update their RTT plans to reflect a more limited scope of work.

'Every state that applied for Race to the Top funds now has a blueprint for raising educational quality across America,' said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. 'These funds will encourage states to continue their courageous work to challenge the status quo and build on the momentum for education reform happening in our classrooms, schools and communities.'"*

To read the full article: click here

For more on TestWiz: click here

*U.S. Department of Education Press Release 5/25/2011. http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases

EdTech Digest Interviews Our President, Naomi Menikoff

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

"When Naomi Menikoff started dataMetrics Software in 1994, student assessment was not as critical an issue as it has become these days. Back then, many districts administered standardized, national tests. 'The assessments took valuable time out of instruction, results did not get back to the districts for many weeks, and the results were hardly used,' says Naomi. 'The teachers typically did not do anything with the information,' she says. Now, a lot of that has changed-dramatically. Here, Naomi shares why.

Victor: Why did you create dataMetrics?
Naomi: I had both a teaching background as well as 10 years working in education-related software. One of the packages I sold had to do with a way to process standardized tests locally with a Scantron-like machine. That appealed to me because at least with local processing, districts could get the results immediately - and save money. But that particular product was getting very old.

By 1994, the Windows platform was ubiquitous and the product was still running on DOS and Apple. The company that owned the program (Tescor) saw that their product had reached the end of its life and wanted to get out of the business. They had support commitments to existing customers and were happy to have me take over that responsibility. They knew that my goal was to create a replacement product that would run under Windows.

I had a background in both teaching and software sales to educators, but I was not a programmer. Fortunately, my husband, Arthur is a mathematician (with university teaching credentials) and was working for a defense contractor who was offering time off without pay while waiting for some government contracts to come in. So it was really opportune. Arthur took a few months off to get the basic structure of TestWiz designed and programmed. We did not simply convert the Tescor product into Windows. We took the idea that we wanted to provide local scanning and scoring and created a new product, TestWiz, from scratch-to run under the latest Windows platform. We had a replacement product available within one year for the 50 some odd districts we were supporting. The districts were willing and eager to switch to a Windows platform.

So to answer your question, I created dataMetrics because there was an opportunity to start a business at a very low cost that had an existing customer base and served the education market in what I perceived a useful way.

Victor: What does the name mean?
Naomi: Arthur came up with the dataMetrics name-since we are helping educators measure data. We had to add the Software part, since the name dataMetrics was already taken by several other companies.

Victor: What about the TestWiz name?
Naomi: I came up with that one. It relates to the fact that we are dealing with tests and that we make it easy." �**

For more of the article click here.

To learn more about TestWiz click here or contact us at software@testwiz.com

** �By Victor Rivero, EdTech Digest, May 3, 2011

An Introduction to Common Education Data Standards (CEDS)

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Presentation by John Blegen, State Higher Education Executive Officers ��
April 7, 2011 WSWHE BOCES Datapalooza Conference in Glens Falls, NY ��

"The CEDS initiative is focused on gaining agreement on standards that will enable consistent data supporting learning pre-kindergarten through college and career. The session will present an introduction and update on the initiative status and focus on how states, regions, schools, and individuals can become involved in developing and benefit from the standards. ��

The Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) initiative is a collaborative effort led by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) in collaboration with the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). The initiative is entirely voluntary and includes and encourages broad participation from across the education community. Since the 2011 Spring Data Conference represents a group of key producers and users of education data, the CEDS initiative can have real and productive impacts."* ��

To view the presentation, click here.

* From the WSWHE BOCES Datapalooza Conference Program, April 7, 2011

Tech & Learning Magazine Features TestWiz

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

In the April 2, 2011 edition of Tech & Learning, TestWiz is highlighted for one of our latest developments. Now, users who subscribe to TestWiz can align their test items to the Common Core Standards.

To view the article on page 42: click here

Binghamton City School District Adopts TestWiz

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Successful summer pilot program leads to implementation of online assessment analysis program throughout the district.

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Binghamton City School District recently implemented TestWiz, a web-based testing analysis and reporting tool, to help expedite the student assessment reporting process for K-10 classrooms in the district. TestWiz allows district personnel to use the program's plain paper scanning technology to quickly analyze student assessment outcomes.

The district initially began using TestWiz as a pilot program with middle school summer session students. Impressed by the functionality of the program, the district chose to replace their internal data collection system and expand their use of TestWiz to assist with the scanning, processing and reporting of student benchmark results.

TestWiz is designed to help educators track and analyze all of the different types of assessments given in K-12 school systems. This hosted, low-cost solution allows teachers and administrators to view, customize, and generate more than 40 types of reports used to analyze assessment data and drive individualized instruction.

For more information on TestWiz, visit our website or call 877.456.8949.

Niagara Falls Talks About Why they Love TestWiz

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Marcia Capone (Administrator for Assessment and CIO) and Carrie Buchman (Teacher on Special Assignment) discuss why they chose TestWiz as their assessment processing tool.

Located in Western NY, Niagara Falls has over 7,200 students and is known throughout the state for their innovation and expertise in data and assessment.

To view the video of Marcia Capone: click here

To view the video of Carrie Buchman: click here

TestWiz Helps Teachers Tailor Instruction and Assessment to Meet Common Core Standards

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Software now comes loaded with Common Core Standards for easy alignment to test questions.

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dataMetrics Software is making it easy to align locally created test items to those standards. TestWiz now comes pre-loaded with the Common Core Standards in English and math.��

The integration of the new standards, along with the system's robust reporting engine, will assist teachers in viewing the effects of their instruction in terms of the new standards. "We are finding that districts in the states that have agreed to adopt the CCS sometime in the future, are already beginning to adjust their curriculum to meet the new standards," said Naomi Menikoff, President of dataMetrics Software, Inc. "Those using the ETS item bank within TestWiz have a choice when selecting items for their local tests - by CCS or by their State's standards. And, those who use TestWiz for locally developed tests have a similar choice when creating the test specifications for local processing. This will make it easy to shift instruction to the new CCS, when teachers are ready."

The CCS Initiative is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). The standards were developed in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts, to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce. The standards are based on the highest, most effective models from states across the country and countries around the world, and provide teachers and parents with a common understanding of what students are expected to learn.

To address the CCS, TestWiz provides teachers with the ability to phase in the new standards gradually by converting assessments once aligned with state and local standards to the new standards and track student and class performance on assessments aligned to the CCS.

To learn more about TestWiz and how it supports the Common Core Standards, visit our site or call 877.456.8949.

U.S. Department of Ed Announces New Education Dashboard

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

"New Education Dashboard Brings Greater Transparency to Data
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At an education stakeholders' meeting today, Secretary Duncan announced the launch of an online tool designed to help educators, parents, students, and policy makers "have a much more transparent conversation" about what is working-and what is not working-in American education today.

Called the Education Dashboard, the site offers all 50 states' pre-kindergarten-12th grade data around 16 key indicators that are tied to the nation's educational goals, as well as some measures of states' postsecondary systems. Specifically, the indicators focus on measuring progress toward realizing the President's vision that by 2020, the United States will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

Deputy Secretary Tony Miller explained at today's launch that the key indicators in the Dashboard were selected because they are relevant, reliable, and measurable across all 50 states. While some of the data have been seen before, much of the information is new, including information about which state systems allow student achievement data to be incorporated into evaluations for teachers and disparities in funding between high- and low-poverty schools." ^*

Link to the Dashboard: http://dashboard.ed.gov/

^*From Ed.Gov site: www.ed.gov