JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi is withdrawing from a multistate testing consortium as it prepares to seek new bids for state tests.
The state Board of Education voted Friday to withdraw from the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers on Jan. 25.
Mississippi had been a founding member of the group, which developed tests to assess learning under the Common Core State Standards.
The Mississippi Board of Education sought to adopt the PARCC tests, and testing firm Pearson PLC was hired by New Mexico to develop them for the consortium. But Mississippi signed only a one-year emergency contract with Pearson, adopting the tests for this spring only. That's because a state contract review board said it would turn down the contract because the state didn't consider other vendors.
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