DRC BEACON is available for all Georgia districts.
BEACON is a through-year, computer adaptive, formative interim assessment system administered in ELA and mathematics in grades 3-8. It measures progress throughout the school year, allowing educators to target instruction and make informed decisions. It is mapped to the Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE), adjusts difficulty to meet students where they are, and minimizes testing time.
BEACON is aligned with Georgia Milestones in multiple ways, including the standards assessed, item types administered, delivery platform used, and tools and accommodations available. It provides estimated performance on the end-of-year Georgia Milestones assessments. Ongoing field testing of newly developed BEACON items allows for future alignment to our standards when the GSE are revised.
This tool is truly formative – it is not used for high-stakes purposes such as student or school accountability. The shortened Georgia Milestones end of year assessment will continue to fulfill state and federal testing and accountability requirements.
BEACON provides immediate and detailed results to inform instruction. Districts have flexibility in determining how best to utilize this formative tool. Choices may include administration as full content area assessments in ELA and/or mathematics or as “testlets" in specified domains.
BEACON is provided free to all Georgia public school districts/schools as an optional formative assessment resource.
Learn more about BEACON item types and accessibility tools by accessing the Online Tools Training at https://drcbeacon.com/online-tools-training/.
