MEMO TO FILE

To: Don Kennedy, Chief Financial and Operations Officer

From: Brad Bernatek, Director, Research, Evaluation and Assessment
Subject: 2009-10 Contract with Northwest Evaluation Association
Date: September 10,2009

In accordance with Seattle Public Schools procurement process, the purpose of t h s

memo to file is two-fold:

1. Clarify the selection process of Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA)

Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) as the district's assessment system for
grades K-9 in reading and math beginning with the 2009-10 school year;

2. Document deviations from the district's established procurement process in the

process of approving the contract with NWEA and to identify steps that will be
taken going forward with respect to contracts in future years.

With respect to the selection process of MAP, although a competitive Request for
Proposal process was not conducted, there was an extensive internal evaluation process

- -a~se*&-.

First, an external consultant was engaged to make recommendations for the district's
assessment system going forward. The consultant's report looked at the current state of
assessment in Seattle Public Schools, extensive internal and external interviews, and a
review of best practices nationwide to come up with these recommendations. It should
be noted that the external consultant was Jessica deBarros who has subsequently become
an employee of the district through the Broad Residency program and is the project
manager for the assessment project.

Second, a cross-functional team that included literacy, mathematics, bilingual, special

education, and advanced learning was created to evaluate the district's options and make
a recommendation for a district-wide assessment system. This group developed a rubric
that identified a set of criteria that delineated the district's priorities around assessment.
Furthermore, this group recommended that the district look to purchase pre-made
assessments rather than build assessments from an item bank that would be purchased
from a vendor, due to the resource constraints of managing such a system as well as the
challenges of ensuring the validity and reliability of such assessments. In looking at the
district's current assessments, MAP and the Stanford 10, the group recommended MAP
as the district's assessment platform in Reading and Math for grades K-9.

Third, a pilot of MAP was conducted in 9 schools during the 2008-9 school year.
Extensive and on-going feedback was collected from the schools over the course of the