NWEA

The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) is a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (acquired by HMH in 2023) that creates academic assessments for students pre-K-12.

NWEA assessments are used by over 50,000 schools and districts in 149 countries. There are over 16.2 million students using NWEA. Its primary assessment product is the MAP Suite, a collection of formative and interim assessments that help teachers identify unique student learning needs, track skill mastery, and measure academic growth over time. Test subjects are math, reading, language, and science.

By testing students two or three times over the school year, MAP assessments attempt to track student growth over time in order to help educators plan curriculum that matches a student's ability, and provides a method of visualizing the student's educational progression. MAP assessments are graded using the RIT scale, measuring between 140 to a maximum of 300. As students advance through school, however, the minimum score rises to around 240, with 350 ending up as the high. Students access the MAP Test by either going to the login website on a regular web browser, or using the NWEA Secure Test Browser. NWEA Secure Testing has a major advantage over the website, as it restricts test-takers from external digital information on their device, locking them on the assessment and nothing else.

In January 2023, it was announced that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had acquired NWEA and would operate as a division of HMH. This was finalized on May 1, 2023.

Chris Minnich is the current president of NWEA.