School Performance

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Slide 8 of 25

Build or Buy? Two reasons to Build*

Alignment

"Aligned to your standards"... and what else?
"Aligned to your standards"... but not your test.

Buying is Outsourcing

Outsource technical competencies that are not central to your mission.

Keep in-house what's central to your work so you can develop your own knowledge about it.

Do you really want to outsource deep knowledge about the skills and content your students need to master?

Speaker Notes: One of the questions you'll face immediately if you try to implement diagnostic testing is do I buy this of the shelf or do I build it myself.

Seems like a no brainer to buy but be careful…. Off the shelf products are often aligned to a weighted average of all states. And even if they're aligned to your state they sometimes don't distinguish between format and content. Be sure you have enough managerial control to ensure those things don't happen to you. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO BE IS ALIGNED.

Then think about who you want to develop this knowledge.

If you buy look for a product you can tailor but if possible build.