Pearson PASeries Writing Debuts
Online Formative Assessment Designed to Measure, Improve Student Writing Progress in Grades 6-12
IOWA CITY, Iowa– March 7, 2006 – Pearson Education today launched PASeries™ Writing, the newest addition to its PASeries™ (Progress Assessment Series™) product line. Developed for students in grades 6-12, PASeries Writing provides online assessment and regular practice throughout the school year to measure student progress and improve writing performance. Using the Knowledge Analysis Technologies™ (KAT) engine for scientifically based automated scoring, PASeries Writing provides immediate online reporting and easy-to-understand visual feedback to connect classroom instruction to student achievement.
“Building strong writing skills is critical for academic success,” said Douglas Kubach, president, Pearson Educational Measurement, developer of PASeries. “PASeries Writing will provide teachers with a powerful tool for helping students build the rigorous writing skills that are required by today’s state and national performance standards.”
The KAT engine, developed by Pearson Knowledge Technologies, is a sophisticated automated evaluation tool that examines student writing in context and provides scoring that aligns with many state rubrics. The KAT engine is a unique automated assessment tool for written language that evaluates the meaning of text, not simply grammatical correctness, spelling or other surface elements.
PASeries Writing, like all other PASeries products, provides rapid online reporting and easy-to-understand visual feedback. PASeries assessments are scientifically valid, reliable and research-based benchmark tests. PASeries tests are designed for completion in one class period with quick electronic reporting of results.
PASeries Writing joins PASeries Reading and PASeries Mathematics, the first two released in September 2004. This school year, the progress of more than 130,000 students in nearly 200 school districts nationwide will be evaluated with PASeries formative assessments.
PASeries is distributed to states and districts by Pearson Educational Measurement and Pearson Assessments. For more information about the PASeries product line, visit www.PearsonPASeries.com.
About Pearson Education
Educating 100 million people worldwide, Pearson Education is the global leader in educational publishing. With brands such as Pearson Prentice Hall, Pearson Scott Foresman, Pearson Educational Measurement, Pearson Assessments, Pearson Learning Group, LessonLab, and many others, Pearson Education provides quality content, assessment tools and educational services in all available media, spanning the learning curve from birth through college and beyond. Pearson Education is part of Pearson, the international media company, whose other primary operations include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.
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Lisa Wolfe, L. Wolfe Communications, 773-325-9935, lwolfe@lwolfe.com