The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), one of two consortia creating K-12 assessments that align to the Common Core State Standards, released this week assessment blueprints and test specification documents for their English/language arts and mathematics assessments.
These resources will share insight with educators on how PARCC assessments will reflect and measure the Common Core standards. This understanding would ideally help educators support quality implementation of the standards through teaching and classroom-based assessments.
The consortium is currently trying out exam questions in several states on mathematics (modeling and reasoning) and English/language arts (prose-constructed responses). Next spring, PARCC will carry out a large-scale field test that will include a stratified sampling of schools and students from all 22 participating states.
Read more about progress made by the second assessment consortium, Smarter Balanced, on our blog.
PARCC also recently released a draft accommodations manual that is open for public comment until May 13, 2013. In addition, public comments on PARCC’s draft performance level descriptors can be submitted until May 8, 2013.
Kara Herbertson, Research and Policy Manager