A legislatively-mandated committee in Florida has selected Alpine Testing Solutions, Inc. (Alpine) and edCount, LLC to conduct an independent verification of the psychometric validity of the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA). The FSA is an assessment of English Language Arts and Mathematics aligned with the Florida state academic content standards and are given to students in grades 3 through high school. This project was mandated by House Bill 7069 and was signed into law on April 14, 2015. The project will include a series of evaluation studies that will result in a summary report of commendations and recommendations for the program.
The committee selected Alpine and edCount in May 2015 with the work scheduled to begin immediately and to be completed by September 1, 2015. In response to the committee’s decision, Chad W. Buckendahl, Ph.D., Director of Strategic Partnerships noted, “Alpine is excited about the opportunity to work on this important project. Alpine is committed to helping maintain the integrity of the tests and quality assurance projects like this are an essential instrument to evaluate the validity of the FSA.”
Ellen Forte, Ph.D., CEO and Chief Scientist of edCount commented “We appreciate the opportunity to work with Alpine on this independent verification project. By engaging in this type of independent, quality assurance activity, the Florida Department of Education will better understand how consistent the FSA is with current testing standards.”
About Alpine Testing Solutions
Alpine Testing Solutions (Alpine) is an employee-owned company that focuses on psychometric consultation, test development, data analysis, and credential management. We work with clients across the education (PK-12, admissions, adult education, language testing), IT, and credentialing sectors (licensure, certification, registration, and assessment-based certificates). Alpine’s staff members have designed and implemented a number of psychometric evaluations of educational and credentialing testing programs for national (e.g., National Assessment of Educational Progress, Western Governors University, National Commission for Certification of Physician Assistants) and state level programs (e.g., Wyoming State Board of Education, Florida Board of Bar Examiners, Oklahoma Office of Educational Quality and Accountability).
About edCount, LLC
edCount, LLC, is a federally-registered woman-owned small business and a certified Woman-Owned Business Enterprise. Since its founding in 2003, edCount has provided direct or advisory services in K-12 assessment to all 50 states and seven U.S. territories through projects funded via both competitive and sole source opportunities ranging from $10,000 to over $3,000,000 annually. As an independent small business that does not offer operational testing services, edCount is able to offer state education agencies objective, constructive feedback about their assessment programs.
For more information contact:
Andrew Wiley, Ph.D.
Director of Education Services
Alpine Testing Solutions
Andrew.Wiley@alpinetesting.com
Website: www.alpinetesting.com