What do Assessment Item Specialists do?

The Assessment Item Specialist (Freelance Contributor) is a critical role that directly contributes to the expansion & quality of the Newsela Item Bank.  This item bank supports Formative, a collaborative assessment platform designed to help educators, grade-level professional learning communities, schools, & districts deliver data-informed instruction by connecting daily checks for understanding, common assessments, & comprehensive, high-quality interim assessments.

In this role, you will leverage your expertise in educational standards, instructional practice, & rigorous quality control to develop, refine, & prepare test items that match the cognitive rigor & content alignment of state summative assessments.  Your work ensures that the Newsela Item Bank has the depth & rigor necessary for educators to create meaningful, standards-aligned assessments.

This role primarily focuses on content expertise, rigorous item review, & accurate digital content creation in English Language Arts, Math, Science, or Social Studies.

Core Responsibilities

• Standards-Aligned Item Development: Create original assessment items (questions, tasks, & accompanying stimuli) that are precisely aligned to specific educational standards, matching the content & cognitive rigor of state summative assessments.
• Assessment Content Transfer: Prepare, upload, & format existing common assessments & released items from external district & state sources into the Formative platform, making them immediately usable by districts.
• Item Production & Configuration: Use our platform to produce & configure technology-enhanced items (TEIs), ensuring accurate technical functionality, metadata tagging, & adherence to assessment specifications.
• Quality Assurance & Item Review: Conduct thorough, systematic reviews & edits of assessment items generated by third-party vendors, ensuring all content is fair, unbiased, free of error, & meets rigorous content & editorial quality standards for educator use.
• Content Alignment & Rigor Validation: Validate item alignment to content standards (e.g., CCSS, state-specific standards) & evaluate the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) or cognitive rigor of items to ensure they are appropriate for measuring student proficiency.
• Platform Feedback: Provide expert feedback & recommendations on content creation tools & item bank product features to enhance efficiency, quality control, & the overall assessment development workflow.

Who You Are

In order to be successful in this role, Assessment Item Specialists (Freelance Contributors) should have the following experience & abilities:

Experience

• Direct, demonstrable experience as an Assessment Item Author & Reviewer across one or more content areas (e.g., English language arts, Math, Science, Social Studies)
• Deep familiarity & successful application of standards alignment principles, including key educational frameworks (e.g., CCSS, NGSS, specific state standards)
• Prior engagement with authoring technology-enhanced items (TEIs)
• K-12 classroom teaching experience (3+ years preferred) or direct work with district curriculum & assessment teams
• Proven track record of managing & delivering high-quality content production under deadlines, with meticulous attention to detail & editorial quality

Knowledge

• Comprehensive understanding of educational assessment methodologies, including the purpose & design of formative, common, & summative assessments
• Expert knowledge & application of frameworks like Depth of Knowledge (DOK) or other cognitive rigor models (e.g., Blooms Taxonomy) to accurately classify & create challenging assessment items
• Thorough grasp of established style guides, editorial best practices, & the critical elements required for quality control in assessment publishing (e.g., fairness, bias, readability, & accessibility)
• Strong foundational knowledge of current K-12 instructional strategies & curriculum design principles to ensure items are relevant & measure intended learning outcomes
• Awareness of current trends & best practices related to technology-enhanced item (TEI) functionality

Who We Are

One of the fastest growing tech companies in K-12 education, Newsela was founded on the principle that while every child may have unique learning preferences, they all deserve a rich learning experience that ignites a love of learning. We built our platform based on learning science research to deliver the most engaging, authentic content to modernize how teaching happens in the classroom. Along with interactive assessments & tools, we provide teachers with digital content at five reading levels -- from +100 of the best sources -- that is relevant to the diverse backgrounds & interests of their students. Since we started in 2013, weve established a presence in 90% of U.S. K-12 schools & over 2.5M teachers & 37M students have registered with Newsela.