At a recent meeting in Alexandria, Virginia, the PARCC Assessment Consortium leaders discussed preliminary feedback received from the public comments on the draft PARCC Draft College-Ready Determination Policy and Policy-Level Performance Level Descriptors. As part of the discussion around the feedback, a question about adding career-ready to the description as a means to include the connectivity to the expectations for mathematics and English Language Arts for both college- and career- readiness was raised.

The policy determination is the initial step in the process that K-12 and postsecondary leaders in PARCC states will use to frame the performance expectations students must meet in English language arts/literacy and mathematics using a five point rating scale. The current draft under public comment review is available here. The primary objective identified within the draft policy states,

“ . . .  students who earn a College-Ready Determination and are admitted to two- or four-year institutions of higher education will be exempted from having to take and pass other placement tests designed to determine whether they are academically prepared to enter directly into entry-level, credit-bearing courses in English, mathematics, and a wide range of disciplines that require college-level reading, such as history and the social sciences.

The College-Ready Determination is not being designed to inform college admission decisions or to exempt students from having to take tests designed to place them into more advanced courses beyond entry-level courses (p. 2)”

As part of the policy development, PARCC leaders have connected with the CTE community through the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) and others to engage in a dialogue around the issues and opportunities to include career-ready as part of the determination policy for mathematics and English language arts as well.

A webinar is being established to engage feedback and input about including a career ready level in the policy creation and assist in the public comment feedback period specifically from the CTE community.

Dean Folkers, Deputy Executive Director

Tags: college and career readiness, common core state standards

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 at 7:13 am and is filed under Public Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.