PILOTS TAKE OFF: SmarterBalanced, one of the two companies cranking away at developing Common Core-ready assessments, announced this week that it was beginning to administer pilot tests on English language arts and mathematics for students in grades 3 to 11. Over a million students across approximately 6,000 schools are expected to participate in this first of two large-scale pilots before the official implementation in 2014-2015. (We spoke with SmarterBalanced COO Tony Alpert back in 2012 on his hopes and expectations on this ambitious--and sometimes controversial--effort.)
