Why You'll Love This Role:

As an Assessment Item Specialist for Social Studies, you will play a key role in expanding the Newsela Item Bank, ensuring students have access to high-quality, inquiry-based assessments. You will leverage your Social Studies expertise to create rigorous, standards-aligned content and evaluate primary and secondary sources that help educators deliver data-informed instruction. This role offers a collaborative, remote environment where your commitment to historical thinking and evidence-based analysis directly supports academic success in classrooms nationwide. You will enjoy the flexibility of a freelance contract while contributing to a platform that is a staple in K-12 digital learning.

What You'll Be Doing:

Create original, standards-aligned Social Studies assessment items, tasks, and stimuli that are precisely mapped to state-specific standards and the C3 Framework.
Select and curate high-quality primary and secondary sources, including maps, charts, and historical documents, that meet specific grade-level complexity and inquiry requirements.
Transfer and format existing Social Studies assessments and items from district and state sources directly into the Formative platform.
Produce and configure technology-enhanced items (TEIs) within the platform, ensuring accurate metadata tagging and flawless technical functionality.
Conduct systematic quality assurance reviews of Social Studies content to ensure all items are unbiased, culturally responsive, and meet strict editorial standards.
Validate content alignment and cognitive rigor by accurately evaluating the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) for every assessment item.
Provide expert platform feedback and recommendations regarding content tools and item bank features to continuously improve development workflows.

About You:

You are a professional assessment author with at least one year of direct experience writing and reviewing Social Studies assessment items on a commercial scale, such as for a reputable EdTech company, testing vendor, or educational publisher.
You are an assessment methodology expert who possesses a comprehensive understanding of educational assessment design, including formative, common, and summative assessments.
You are a standards and framework specialist with deep familiarity with state-specific social studies standards and the C3 Framework, along with a proven ability to apply strict standards alignment principles.
You demonstrate a mastery of rigor and Depth of Knowledge (DOK), allowing you to accurately classify and create items that meet specific cognitive rigor requirements, particularly in evaluating historical evidence and civic reasoning.
You are skilled in technical item production, bringing prior experience authoring technology-enhanced items (TEIs) and comfortably navigating digital assessment platforms.
You exhibit editorial excellence through a thorough grasp of established style guides and best practices, including critical quality control elements such as fairness, bias, and accessibility.
You are a reliable content producer with a proven track record of delivering high-quality work under tight deadlines with meticulous attention to detail.
Legally authorized to work in the US.

Why you’ll love working at Newsela:

Work From Home: We are a fully remote company!
Make A Difference: No matter your role or department, the work you do each day helps share the future of education and improves the lives of students and teachers.

About Newsela:

Newsela is a leading education technology company dedicated to meaningful classroom learning for every student. We deliver integrated, AI-powered solutions designed to unlock student engagement, empower teachers, and drive meaningful learning outcomes. Our suite of products supports knowledge and skill development, writing practice, daily instruction, assessment, and data-informed decision-making across K–12 classrooms. Grounded in learning science research, Newsela’s solutions integrate content, assessment, and analytics to help educators track progress, understand student outcomes, and deliver high-impact instruction that supports every learner.

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Project Based Freelance Contributor - Assessment Item Specialist, Social Studies (Remote, US)