Nonprofit to design custom content for a key New Meridian customer
Council for Aid to Education, Inc. (CAE), a nonprofit developer of performance-based and custom assessments that authentically measure students’ essential college and career skills, was awarded a three-year contract with New Meridian Corporation, a nonprofit assessment company committed to fostering deeper learning and advancing equity in education. The $2.95 million contract involves creating custom English Language Arts (ELA)/Literacy summative assessment content for public school students in grades three through eight.
Beginning in 2021 CAE and New Meridian will deliver custom content and technical services support for a key state summative assessment client. The assessment helps the state ensure that all public school students have the opportunity to learn critical grade-level instructional content aligned to the requisite state standards. Stacey Sparks, senior director of content design and development at CAE, will lead the project.
“CAE is proud to work with New Meridian and contribute our expertise in developing tailored assessments for K-12 state and district education systems. Our team is deeply familiar with the detailed standards, frameworks and item types underlying these summative assessments,” said Bob Yayac, president and CEO, CAE. “Strong content is critical to assessments, and we look forward to providing engaging and relevant content.
CAE will be an important strategic partner helping New Meridian achieve its mission to develop high-quality assessments focused on the essential skills that matter: critical thinking, problem-solving and written communication. Through its innovative approach whereby states share assessment content, New Meridian enables states to develop these assessments more cost effectively. Under this new contract, New Meridian and CAE together will develop a bank of content that will serve summative assessment needs for years.
“CAE has deep experience developing rich assessment items that ask students to think deeply, solve problems, and express a point of view—the kinds of skills that are key to their becoming critical and engaged thinkers who are ready to solve the problems of tomorrow,” said Arthur VanderVeen, CEO, New Meridian. “We are excited to bring our shared commitment to these values to help our client maintain its world-class assessment system and support its commitments to equity and opportunity for all students across the state.
About New Meridian
New Meridian is a nonprofit assessment company on a mission to support quality education for all students by fostering deeper learning. Since 2016, our diverse team of assessment design experts have collaborated with classroom educators to develop a better way to assess students and prepare them for the opportunities of tomorrow. New Meridian’s standards-based tests emphasize the skills most important to success: critical thinking, deep understanding and the ability to communicate ideas effectively. New Meridian works closely with states to develop innovative assessment solutions—often at or below the cost of traditional custom tests—that provide educators with insight into how students apply content knowledge to solve real-world challenges, while providing policymakers with rich, actionable data needed to accelerate educational equity.
About CAE
A mission-driven, nonprofit organization, CAE develops performance-based and custom assessments that authentically measure students’ essential skills and identify opportunities for growth. CAE’s flagship assessments – CLA+, CWRA+ and SSA+ – evaluate the college and career skills educational institutions and employers demand most: critical thinking, problem solving and written communication. Based on CAE’s research, these skills are predictive of positive college and career outcomes. CAE also partners with national, state and district clients to design innovative custom performance assessments that measure the constructs vital to students, educators and institutions. Since 2002, more than 800,000 students at over 1,300 secondary and higher education institutions globally have completed these assessments. To learn more, please visit www.cae.org.