The Challenge

Comprehensive and systemic assessment programs have never been more important in education. Many district leaders have realized that the proliferation of assessments administered within their districts has resulted in redundancies and additional costs that do not translate into more useful information. This effect, feeling "Data Rich and Information Poor®", is all too common in organizations.

The Solution

In addition to providing consulting services and audit services related to a district's assessment program, ECRA provides a target set of test scoring, reporting, and test development services from essay scoring to value-added growth modeling of achievement data.

Writing Assessment

Presently, school districts are being held more academically accountable due to the requirements outlined in the Common Core State Standards that are currently being developed, adopted, and implemented across the country. Writing is so essential to college and career readiness that specific writing standards are outlined in the Common Core Standards for grades K – 12. The ECRA Writing Assessment is aligned with the Common Core benchmarks and specific additions that ensure all K-12 students will be college- and career-ready in today's world. External writing assessments are vital in objectively measuring student performance and rendering unbiased judgment concerning the impact of Language Arts curriculum.

Student Motivation Assessment

The ECRA Student Motivation Assessment is designed to evaluate students' attitudes toward their academic environment and of themselves as students. The ECRA Student Motivation Assessment measures a student's desire to be successful, their feelings of personal importance in school, their engagement with study skills and work habits, their self-perception of ability, and the importance they place on class activities. ECRA Student Motivation scores have been shown to predict academic performance.

Test Development

Helping organizations build valid and reliable assessment instruments has been a core competency of ECRA for over 30 years. ECRA's test developers assist school districts in building better internal assessments for confidence that the data produced from said assessments are of the utmost quality. In addition, ECRA documents validity and reliability along with other psychometric test properties that may prove necessary in an environment of increased accountability.

EXPLORE, PLAN, AND ACT (EPAS) Test Scoring, Analysis, and Reporting

For many high school districts, the EXPLORE, PLAN, and ACT assessment sequence (EPAS) serves as the primary data source for which high school districts place students into grade nine courses, monitor student growth, and predict student progress toward college readiness standards. ECRA provides a variety of test scoring, reporting, and analysis services to help districts make better use of their EPAS data. From building course placement algorithms, to scoring and reporting practice tests, to generating diagnostic skills reports that are linked to college readiness standards, ECRA ensures that the right information is extracted from EPAS test data and communicated to the appropriate audiences.