CTB/McGraw-Hill

   Technology
CTB was a leading publisher of standardized achievement tests for children and adults. With a staff of doctoral-level researchers, scientists, mathematicians, writers, and editors, CTB assisted thousands of school districts across the nation and scored more than 20 million test documents each year. Other CTB services included Internet reporting and web-based information delivery systems; presentations to decision-makers in district, diocese, state, or government groups; test security planning; software training for educators, curriculum developers, and administrators.

Project Manager for CELDT assessment scoring, overseeing the processing of 1.7 million assessments annually for 10,000 California schools.

Challenge

Served as Project Manager for the California English Language Development Test (CELDT) responsible for scoring and reporting for 1,000 districts, 10,000 schools, and 1.7 million students annually. Developed and implemented a secure online system for district coordinators to update student biographical information prior to report generation.

The CELDT was a multi-year contract awarded to CTB/McGraw-Hill by the California Department of Education (CDE). It was worth in excess of $20 million in revenue and had major strategic importance to CTB/McGraw-Hill. The CELDT was also critically important to the CDE, 1000 California school districts, 10,000 California schools, and the 1.7 million California students it served. District and school funding were directly tied to test compliance.

Solution

CDE requested the development of a new online utility that would allow district coordinators the ability to securely update student biographical information prior to reporting to increase district and school compliance. The online utility was named Easy Post-Test Check.

Jason worked closely with CDE to develop the requirements, technical specifications, implementation plan, and ultimately the launch of the utility during the live testing cycle. Responsibilities included leading application development and testing; training and communications for CDE, district coordinators, and help desk staff; and implementation into the live CELDT program.

Result

Easy Post-Test Check, the secure biographical update utility, was successfully implemented into the live CELDT contract, and subsequent CELDT contracts. The utility allowed for greater accuracy in reporting of district data and increased compliance and funding for California school districts. This utility was then leveraged for other state testing contracts and made available as part of a suite of eBusiness tools known collectively as Navigator. Jason functioned as the business lead for the development and implementation of other eBusiness utilities including Real Time File Sharing and Easy Student ID Upload, which were initially developed for the CELDT contract. These innovations had a significant and lasting impact on CTB/McGraw-Hill and the state, districts, schools, and students it served.

Jason was responsible for a number of state assessment contracts and product development projects during his tenure at CTB/McGraw-Hill, holding a number of key positions including online commerce specialist and program schedule analyst.