Vantage Learning...  announced that the Houston Independent School District has become the most recent of the state's 600+ districts to adopt the Web-Based Comprehensive Curriculum Assessment Tool (WebCCAT), an online assessment system, customized for Texas, that measures students' abilities in language arts, math, science, and social studies. Now more than 45,000 Texas educators in 3,500 schools statewide are using WebCCAT to build skills on the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum standards, and to improve scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test....
      
Houston ISD adopted WebCCAT, which has been used in Texas since 2004, and was developed in conjunction with Region 10 Education Service Center, based on customer testimonials and positive results reported by other districts. Features include creating and printing grade-level and subject-appropriate paper tests, searching a repository of over 33,000 test items, in both English and Spanish, based on TEKS/TAKS labels and keywords, and printing corresponding test answer keys containing TEKS/SE and TAKS labels....
         
"Teachers from districts who are members of WebCCat have seen a marked improvement in their students' enthusiasm, test scores, and ability to learn," says Lindy Haley, Curriculum and Instruction Coordinator with the Education Service Center, Region 6, in Huntsville. "This system helps them create and administer tests more easily, and gives teachers more flexibility because assignments are aligned directly to the state's TEKS requirements. Teachers have hugged and thanked us in the trainings we have done with Houston for introducing them to this system. It honestly saves them time and is an excellent tool for student improvement. We are very proud of WebCCat and are happy to support it for the Houston and Huntsville area."

Press Release, April 2.