Harcourt Assessment Secures Contract For New York City’s Gifted And Talented Program Assessments
Harcourt’s OLSAT and GRS products to be used to identify gifted and talented students
6 October 2006
SAN ANTONIO – Harcourt Assessment, Inc. recently announced the company will enter into a contract with the New York City Department of Education to provide testing materials and services for administering assessments to students in pre-K through grade 2 to identify students for entry into the City's Gifted and Talented programs. Under the contract, Harcourt will provide services for the next five school years.
The City will use Harcourt's Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT®) and Gifted Rating Scales (GRS) to identify gifted students for their Gifted and Talented programs. The OLSAT®, a norm-referenced assessment, will measure the cognitive abilities that relate to a student's ability to learn in school, while the GRS will utilize rating scales based on current theories of giftedness as well as federal and state guidelines regarding the definition of gifted and talented students. The tests will be used in tandem, providing important and diverse perspectives to determine students' eligibility for the program.
"We are excited to have the opportunity to assist the City with admissions to their early Gifted and Talented programs. It brings me personal satisfaction that Harcourt Assessment's products will be helping my hometown to enhance their Gifted and Talented program," said Harcourt Assessment CEO Michael Hansen. "The use of the OLSAT® and GRS will ensure that New York City's gifted and talented students are properly identified so they may participate in programs that allow them to reach their full potential."
Under the contract, Harcourt will also provide informational materials to parents, training for teachers and administrators and will work with the Department to develop and implement the scoring methodology.
The Otis-Lennon School Ability Test is a distinguished series of tests first authored by Arthur S. Otis and Roger T. Lennon in 1936. By evaluating a student's performance on a variety of tasks, OLSAT® assesses abilities that are related to success in school. Tasks such as detecting likenesses and differences, recalling words and numbers, defining words, following directions, classifying, establishing sequence, solving arithmetic problems, and completing analogies are included in OLSAT®. These skills have been shown to be valid measures of an individual's ability to reason logically.
The Gifted Rating Scales, first published in 2003, are authored by Dr. Steven I. Pfeiffer and Dr. Tania Jarosewich. The GRS is completed through extensive teacher evaluations and measures giftedness on multiple scales. The GRS-P, designed for children in preschool and kindergarten, evaluates children on five scales including intellectual ability, academic ability, creativity, artistic talent and motivation. The GRS-S, designed for children in grades 1-8, evaluates giftedness in children on six scales including intellectual ability, academic ability, creativity, artistic talent, leadership ability and motivation. By design, the Gifted Rating Scales minimize observational bias and increase measurement accuracy. GRS validation studies have been accepted for publication in leading professional journals including Gifted Child Quarterly which has accepted three GRS validity studies, the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment and the Roeper Review.
About Harcourt Assessment, Inc.
Based in San Antonio, Harcourt Assessment, Inc. is a leading provider of high-quality assessment instruments and testing programs published under two brand names –– Harcourt Assessment and PsychCorp™. For more than 85 years, Harcourt Assessment has been providing insight about children and adults; informing instruction, curricula, and clinical practice; collaborating with educators and clinical professionals; and creating assessment innovations, in order to provide the most effective assessment solutions for the success of all individuals. The company is a unit of Harcourt Education, a global education provider serving students and teachers in PreK through grade 12, adult learners, and readers of all ages. Harcourt Education is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc. (www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading publisher and information provider. It is owned equally by Reed Elsevier PLC (NYSE: RUK) and Reed Elsevier NV (NYSE: ENL).