California will be a passenger, not a driver, among states moving forward with the next generation of standardized tests that will likely replace California Standards Tests and other states’ exams.

Without public discussion or explanation, state officials have chosen one of two consortia that are in the running for a piece of the $320 million that the Obama administration has set aside to design new tests. It will probably split the money between the two.

California joined 25 other states in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers or  PARCC as a participating, not a governing state. That designation will give California flexibility – it can drop out or switch consortia with little notice – but little control over key decisions and the design of the tests. So if it doesn’t like the direction that the tests are taking, too bad.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s education advisers selected PARCC over the “home team”: the SMARTER-Balanced Assessment Consortium which is being championed by Professor Linda Darling-Hammond and colleagues at the Stanford School of Education and is being managed by San Francisco-based WestEd and its senior program director, Stanley Rabinowitz. SMARTER-Balanced enlisted 31 states.

A few states signed up as participating members of both consortia. California still can  do so or switch consortia in coming years; there’s no penalty.

PARCC is being managed by Achieve, Inc., a Washington-based non-profit that has been involved in establishing the California Diploma Project. The Diploma Project has been working behind the scenes to try to align high school coursework and requirements with state universities’ and community colleges’ expectations. State eduction officials might have seen PARCC as a safe bet and comfortable fit. Massachusetts, which California likes to be associated with because of its high academic standards, is a governing PARCC member.

Both consortia are charged with replacing multiple choice tests that have gotten a bad rap with more complex assessments that will be aligned to the new common core standards that California and other states will be deciding this summer whether to adopt.

At this point, both consortia are making broad promises on what they’ll create by 2014-15, when states are supposed to implement the first tests. Critics are saying both are overpromising what they can deliver. EdWeek, which analyzed both proposals, found nuances of difference and similarities in approach.

Both say they will integrate summative or end-of-the-year tests with interim and formative assessments that can guide instruction during the year. Both are promising to include performance-based tasks, such as conducting a science experiment and writing short answers to questions, that are intended to show deeper levels of learning and thinking than multiple choice questions supposedly can measure. They’ll be fewer of the latter on the tests.

Computer-adaptive technology

SMARTER-Balanced appears to emphasize formative assessments, while PARCC is focusing on summative assessments. PARCC is promising to be able to provide teachers and parents with reports on how individual students are progressing toward the goal of being  ready for college or the workplace. Both consortia say they will make the most of computer technology, replacing paper and pencil tests. But SMARTER-Balanced is promising extensive use of computer-adaptive technology, which adjusts the difficulty of questions based on individual students’ earlier answers. It uses fewer but more precise questions to measure a student’s knowledge. Computer-adaptive tests hold considerable promise but have had limited use and a spotty history so far.

In addition to the two consortia, a third  consortium, the State Consortium on Board Examination Systems, is proposing to create performance-based high school exams that could replace standard credit-based courses. A dozen states, not including California, have joined this group, which hopes to get $30 million in federal money to develop the exams.