MARS is a long-running research and development collaboration of people at Michigan State, Berkeley and at the UK Shell Centre for Mathematical Education. MARS works with a diverse range of clients, providing advice and support in the design and development of high quality performance assessment, curriculum support materials, and professional development for and through performance assessment.

The Toolkit project grew out of MARS' recognition that solid progress required a similarly systematic look at all the needs of change agents, and of the change process as a whole.
The team has been supported by NSF since 1992, with other funding from a variety of sources.