February 23, 2015 4:08 PM

Reckoning Day: Two giants compete for big Texas testing contract

ETS and Pearson go head to head this week on four-year contract

Two coalitions, headed by the nation’s biggest testing giants, will go head to head this week in oral presentations to compete for one of Texas’ largest contracts.

Texas passed its first bill for standardized tests at grade level intervals in 1979. The requirement for the passage of an exit-level test to graduate high school was added in 1984. Through it all, Pearson NCS has carried the contract for every generation of standardized testing the state: TABS, TEAMS, TAAS, TAKS and now STAAR.

The Texas Education Agency declined to comment on the oral presentations, but the agency’s own timeline indicates oral presentations, before a team of evaluators, must be completed by Feb. 27.

Commissioner Michael Williams is expected to pick one of two final teams by March 18. While the last contract, which went to Pearson, was five years and valued at $462 million, this contract is four years and may be substantially less as lawmakers have begun to cut and substitute tests.

By Kimberly Reeves