TESTING, TESTING: Some say there is money to be made in delivering tests. McGraw-Hill Education doesn't see it that way. Today the company exited the summative testing business by selling a number of assets it has had in that area to long-time partner and K-12 assessment company, Data Recognition Corp. McGraw-Hill is nonetheless hanging onto two assessment assets that it believes are cornerstones for its future, namely Engrade and Acuity.
McGraw-Hill chief executive David Levin was cheery about the news. Summative assessment "is not aligned to what we're doing in the rest of the company," he told EdSurge via email. "We want to focus our resources on using personalized, adaptive and increasingly open technology that harness the science of learning."
That's not what summative testing is all about.
And it's hardly the same old tests. Particularly with the introduction of Common Core, summative testing demands more technology from the company delivering the assessments (as well as from schools). That means that assessment platforms themselves need investment--something that McGraw-Hill is reluctant to do as it instead pursues adaptive learning technologies which place greater importance on formative assessment.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
