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Posts Tagged ‘common core state standards’

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CTE Research Review

Wednesday, August 20th, 2014

Research Image_6.2013The 46th annual “2014 PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools” is being released in two parts this year, with part one debuting Wednesday. The findings present a complicated picture of public attitudes toward the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), standardized tests and issues surrounding local control. This year’s topics were selected by an expert panel that included NASDCTEc member Katherine Oliver, Assistant State Superintendent at the Maryland Department of Education.

Making headlines were results indicating that support for CCSS is fading fast. This may be tied to misunderstanding of its purpose, as the study found that most Americans oppose public education efforts that they believe were created or promoted by the federal government and strongly support local control of what schools teach. While CCSS is neither a federal initiative nor designed to mandate specific curricula, the poll indicates that many Americans see CCSS as an example of federal overreach. According to the poll 56 percent say local school boards should have the greatest influence in deciding what is taught in public schools. Almost 30 percent of respondents indicated that state governments should have the greatest influence on what public schools teach.

Persistent across age, income and education levels, a majority of Americans also oppose using the CCSS to guide instruction, though opinion splits by political affiliation — Republican (76 percent), Independents (60 percent) and Democrats (38 percent). Nationally, just one in three people said they favored the standards, primarily because they will help students learn what they need to know regardless of where they go to school.

Each year, the study asks the public to grade the President’s performance in support of public schools. This year, President Barack Obama received the lowest grade since becoming president in 2009. Underscoring the deep divides over education in the country, respondents equally gave the President an A or B (27 percent) or a Fail (27 percent).

The study’s co-author and CEO of PDK International, William J. Bushaw, said policy makers are often faced with a tough reality when public opinion and public policy conflict, with the question being whether to modify the policy to align with public opinion or launch a communications campaign to better explain the new policy.

“To address higher achievement and greater equity, the United States needs standards of excellence, and there is wide agreement that the Common Core State Standards offer these standards. In this case, modifying policy is not a solution,” Bushaw wrote. “… Working together, education professionals through their associations, along with business and political leaders can work together to mount a nonpartisan communications campaign explaining to Americans why the Common Core State Standards are essential to the nation’s future and to the success of all children. Public support for the standards is declining — we need to fight for these standards since we are losing in the court of public opinion.”

Check back on September 17 for the second part of the 2014 poll with topics such as preparing students for college and careers, importance and affordability of college, preparing and evaluating teachers, support for reforming America’s schools, and student well-being.

Andrea Zimmermann, State Policy Associate

By admin in Research
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Announcing CTE & Literacy: The Common Core Institute

Thursday, March 13th, 2014

The National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) in partnership with the Association for Career and Technical Education, the College Board, and Student Achievement Partners are excited to announce a two-day institute for CTE educators on the Common Core State Standards, with a focus on literacy in technical subjects on April 16-17 in New York City.

The two-day workshop is designed to be a practical, interactive and collaborative learning opportunity for CTE educators at any level, and across all Career Clusters.  Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the Common Core literacy standards, be provided with resources that they can use freely to provide local training, and have access to tools to help support the ongoing implementation of the Common Core literacy standards in their own communities.  

The Institute registration is free, although participants will be responsible for travel and accommodations.  Priority will be given to teams of educators from individuals schools, districts or states.

Learn more and register HERE!

When:  April 16-17, 2014

Where: New York City, NY

Why: To gain in-depth fluency with the Common Core literacy standards and the tools and skills needed to support effective implementation in your schools and communities.

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Meetings and Events
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Call for Presentations NOW OPEN for Achieving Excellence in Career Technical Education: The National Career Clusters Institute

Monday, December 23rd, 2013

CTE_Logo

The Call for Presentations is NOW OPEN for Achieving Excellence in Career Technical Education: The National Career Clusters® Institute.

We are looking for sessions that feature high-quality programs of study, with proven track records of success; offer strategies for successful collaboration, implementation and innovation at the classroom, district or system level; and/or provide opportunities for participants to engage in interactive and hands-on learning activities.

MORE DETAILS
Proposal Deadlines
Proposals will be accepted through February 21, 2014. Speakers will be notified of status early March, 2014.
Submit your proposal now!
Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

By admin in Career Clusters®, Meetings and Events, News
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CTE Research Review

Thursday, November 21st, 2013

Research Image_6.2013Over the past few weeks, a number of new reports and research papers came out with with implications for Career Technical Education and state leaders. Below are summaries of a few of particular use.

The National Center for Education Statistics released a two-pager, Trends in CTE Coursetaking, showing a decline over the past 19 years in CTE enrollment at the secondary level, from about 4.2 credits earned by public high school graduates to 3.6 credits in 2009. In part this is due to higher enrollments in core academic courses, such as science, foreign languages, and mathematics, and it is also due to a change in NCES data collection and coding for CTE enrollment. Importantly, this NCES dataset does not take into account any CTE credits earned by high school graduates at the 1,200 area technical centers across the country.

Achieve released Closing the Expectations Gap: The 2013 Annual Report on the Alignment of State K-12 Policies and Practice with the Demands of College and Careers, its 8th report in this series. The report, based on surveys of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, notes significant progress on the adoption of college- and career-ready (CCR) standards (in English and mathematics), with every state having met that milestone, largely driven by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). It also finds that progress on adopting graduation requirements and assessments aligned to those CCR standards has slowed, although the two consortia developing assessments aligned to the CCSS should accelerate progress over the next few years.

Finally, Achieve finds that no state has a reporting and accountability system that fully values (academic) college and career readiness for all students, as defined by the collection and use of a number of key indicators (e.g., percent of students completing a CCR curriculum, percent of students scoring at the CCR level on a high school assessment, percent of students earning college credit in high school, and the percent of graduates enrolling in remedial coursework upon entrance to a postsecondary institution). Achieve also surveyed states about their use of “career-ready” indicators, although this research was not reported out (NASDCTEc will follow up!).

The report also delves deeply into a number of policies and practices to support the implementation of the CCR standards and aligned assessments, including the state role in developing and/or supporting professional development and instructional materials, and provides a handy CCSS implementation timeline for all 46 states.

The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) obtained a comprehensive dataset detailing school district revenues and expenditures for every school district in the nation for federal fiscal year 2011  to determine the impact of sequestration and other budget cuts on school districts. The result of this analysis – Unequal Pain: Federal Public Education Revenues, Federal Education Cuts and the Impact on Public Schools – was released in November 2013.

Briefly, the report finds that about 12% of school funding comes from the federal level but that the distribution is unequal across the country:

Cut another way, over a third of schools received a federal share of 12% or more, about a quarter of schools had operating budgets in which federal revenues represented more than 15% of total budget revenues, and about 6% of schools had operating budgets in which federal funds represented 25% or more of total budget revenues. All of this is to say, sequestration and budget cuts will disproportionally impact schools and districts educating large number of high-need students. AASA partnered with ProximityOne to create a map where users can examine school district revenue and expenditure patterns.

Weighing in on the very real debate over whether states should primarily support credit-bearing postsecondary programs that lead to a degree, Learning Works in California offers a new brief urging a deep look at what the authors identify as “skills-builders,” or students taking (and passing) community college courses without earning a degree or certificate.  The Missing Piece: Quantifying Non-Completion Pathways to Success cites research showing that about a third of all students  in the California Community College system meet this construct of “skills-builders,” many of whom took courses in high-skilled areas and enjoyed a salary bump as a result. The brief encourages states to reconsider the ways they measure a community college’s success to not limit the full range of community colleges’ benefits.

Finally, the National Center for Education Statistics recently updated its State Education Reforms webpage, which compiles research from a wide range of organizations to provide a one-stop site for information on states’ accountability systems; standards, assessments and graduation requirements; staff qualifications and development; school choice policies; and students’ readiness and progress through school.

Kate Blosveren, Associate Executive Director

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Research
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CTE Research Review

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013

Research Image_6.2013Over the past few weeks, a number of critical reports and research papers came out with wide-spreading implications for Career Technical Education (CTE). Below are summaries of a few that caught our attention.

The Center for Great Teachers and Leaders released 21st Century Educators: Developing and Supporting Great Career and Technical Education Teachers, a new special issue brief focusing on the human capital management policies impacting CTE educators: certification, performance evaluation and professional learning opportunities. The issue brief, which NASDCTEc had an opportunity to review, provides a comprehensive overview of the current policies in place across the country and raises issues for greater consideration as states refine their certification, evaluation and professional development systems. The brief also contains a useful glossary of key terms.

The Center for Education Policy issued Career Readiness Assessments across States: A Summary of Survey Findings, the result of a survey of 46 State CTE Directors on the range of assessments used in their states to measure students’ career readiness and how those assessments are used, which NASDCTEc also had the opportunity to review. Some key findings from the report include:

U.S. States in a Global Context: Results from the 2011 NAEP-TIMSS Linking Study offers an analysis that allows state scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to be compared. In short, the study found that 36 states were above the TIMSS average in mathematics (with only six states lower) and 47 were above the TIMSS average in science for 8th-grade students. While this is heartening, it’s also important to note that Massachusetts was the only state to reach the “high benchmark” rating on TIMSS, defined as “students can apply their understanding and knowledge in a variety of relatively complex situations,” joined by five high-performing countries.

Similarly, in science, eight states (Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin) reached the “high benchmark,” defined as “students can reason with information, draw conclusions, make generalizations and solve linear equations.”

The first of its kind OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills presents the initial results of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), which evaluates and compares the skills of 166,000 adults from 24 countries. A major component is the direct assessment of key information-processing skills: literacy, numeracy and problem solving in the context of technology-rich environments.

A new report by the Brookings Institute – Standardized Testing and the Common Core Standards: You Get What You Pay For? – explores the (very minimal) impact states leaving either the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers have on the price of those assessments per student. The paper makes a strong case to states to not sacrifice test quality by presumably leaving either consortia, in order to save $10 or $20 per student – a drop in the bucket of an education system that spends more than $10,000 per student annually.

The Hamilton Project, out of the Brookings Institute, released a policy brief on Redesigning the Pell Grant Program for the Twenty-First Century, calling for three major structural reforms to a policy that has largely remained unchanged over the past forty years since it was first launched:

  1. Augmenting the Pell program’s financial support with tailored guidance and support services that have been shown to improve academic and/or labor-market success (which has implications for One-Stop Career Centers);
  2. Simplifying the eligibility and application process to ensure that the program reaches those who need it most;
  3. Strengthening incentives for student effort and timely completion, including providing more flexibility for when and how students earn credits

 

Kate Blosveren, Associate Executive Director

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Research, Resources
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Fall Meeting Recap: Common Core State Standards & Career Technical Education

Tuesday, October 29th, 2013

CCSS LogoLast week, the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) held its annual Fall Meeting,  which featured a panel of state CTE leaders sharing their strategies for implementation the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Kicking off the panel was Meredith Liben, Director of Literacy at Student Achievement Partners (SAP), who described the three major instructional shifts within the CCSS in English Language Arts/Literacy, which in essence boil down to “texts worth reading, questions worth answered and work worth doing.” Liben highlighted the challenge among CTE teachers who often don’t have a literacy background in internalizing such shifts within their classrooms, and gave a sneak peek into the work SAP plans to take on in this space moving forward.

Next up was Katharine Oliver, Assistant State Superintendent of Career and College Readiness at the Maryland State Department of Education who described the state’s efforts to identify ways to measure student growth in CTE through the development of student learning objectives (SLOs), as well as the professional development that brings interdisciplinary teams of teachers together to collaborate to understand and identify complex texts. An early lesson learned is the importance of keeping teachers in “like groups,” as CTE teachers want to be able to see literacy through the lens of their own content areas rather than for all CTE subjects. Oliver also mentioned a new Blackboard site where the state will be posting lessons in “those difficult to teach areas” including CTE.

Russ Weikle, Director of Career and College Transition Division at the California Department of Education framed much of the work in his state as “deliberate” alignments to the CCSS. The approach California took when modifying their CTE standards framework was to create anchor standards (a term borrowed from the CCSS’s ELA/Literacy standards) that are consistent across all Career Clusters, making them “CTE standards that CTE teachers can own, while still teaching CCSS.” Under the anchor standards are performance indicators that are specific to the state’s Career Pathways. Next, the state convened educators to review the Career Pathway-level standards and look for “substantial and natural alignment” between them and the CCSS. The task put before them was to determine if a pathway standard would enhance, reinforce or apply a specific core subject standard.” The result of this effort are Academic Alignment Matrices for each of the state’s 15 Career Clusters.

In addition, 500 educators in California have gone through a train the trainer module around disciplinary literacy and are not replicating the training in their schools and districts. The module can be found here.

Sharing Wisconsin’s efforts to date, Sharon Wendt, Director of Career and Technical Education at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction discussed the state’s efforts around literacy, jumpstarted by the adoption of the CCSS and the launch of a Governor’s Task Force on literacy in 2010. With CTE engaged in the task force from the get-go, it has allowed for that work to inform the revision of the state’s CTE standards and for CTE to inform the broader statewide discussion of college and career readiness.   One major takeaway Wendt shared is how the CCSS are helping core academic teachers better understand what happens within CTE classrooms through such inter-disciplinary professional development and resources being developed. Wisconsin has some terrific materials for disciplinary literacy, which can be found here.

Most of the conversation was focused around the ELA/Literacy standards and the panelists did admit much less work had been done in mathematics to date in part because they are not technically required for CTE educators and because there is more resistance from the mathematics community to integrate. Maryland is working to develop senior year transition courses in mathematics, particularly for students who do not meet the college- and career-ready determination on the state test, with a heavy emphasis on mathematics applications. Another idea on the table in Maryland is to identify where a CTE course or sequence of courses with enough math may count as a fourth-year math requirement.

While it is too early to measure results with implementation still underway, all of the panelists noted “appreciative teacher”s and “positive feedback” from core academic educators as early signs of success.

Kate Blosveren, Associate Executive Director

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Advance CTE Fall Meeting
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Common Core State Standards & CTE Roundup

Thursday, August 15th, 2013

CCSS LogoWith nearly every state in the country working to implement the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and English/Literacy, and more and more resources and information being generated by states, districts, schools and education-focused organizations to support implementation, NASDCTEc is excited to present a blog series on the Common Core State Standards and Career Technical Education! The blog features news and resources that directly impact CTE educators as well as other materials we think are useful to the field. This edition features many communications-focused materials and resources.

In the News…
As you may have seen, New York State just released the results from its first year of administering CCSS-aligned assessments administered and, as expected, scores dropped fairly dramatically statewide. (Read more about it here). Kentucky experienced a similar drop in scores last year when they first moved to a CCSS-aligned assessment.

Featured Resources & Tools
The Center for Education Policy released “Year 3 of Implementing the Common Core State Standards: State Education Agencies’ Views on the Federal Role,” the third annual survey and report on states’ progress in implementing the Common Core State Standards. Major findings include:

A number of pro-CCSS websites were launched this summer, most notably Conservatives for Higher Standards, which highlights a range of right-leaning political leaders’ positive positions on the CCSS and debunks many of the false claims about the CCSS currently being spread in some political factions, and iAdvocate for Students, a website managed by three PTA volunteers, who are classroom teachers and/or mothers of K-12 students that features positive stories on the CCSS.

To both promote a number of their own tools for supporting the implementation of the CCSS and to better coordinate related resources, Achieve, the Council of Chief State School Officers and Student Achievement Partners released a joint Toolkit for Evaluating the Alignment of Instructional and Assessment Materials to the CCSS.  This Toolkit features the Instructional Materials Evaluation Tools; the EQuIP rubrics for evaluating lessons and units; the Assessment Evaluation Tool; the Assessment Passage and Item Quality Criteria Checklist; Publisher’s Criteria for the CCSS; and a list of additional resources relevant to evaluating instructional materials’ alignment to the CCSS.

The Data Quality Campaign (of which NASDCTEc is a partner organization) has released a number of short resources to help leaders explain how education data can be utilized and to help dispel myths that CCSS will somehow require the sharing of any student-level data. Notable resources include What Every Parent Should Be Asking about Education Data  (co-developed with the PTA) and Talking about the Facts of Education Data with Policymakers and Parents.

Finally, the GE Foundation hosted its third annual Business and Education Summit last month, bringing together business and education leaders from across the nation to discuss the Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, college- and career-ready assessment and accountability systems, and how the business community can best support state and local efforts to implement such policies and practices.  In advance of the Summit, GE Foundation conducted a survey of the business participants. Among the 52 executives who responded:

Updates on Common Core Assessments
Consortia Musical Chairs: Georgia has withdrawn as a PARCC governing state, while North Dakota and Wyoming officially became governing states within Smarter Balanced.

Also major news is that cost estimates are now available from both consortia. PARCC’s summative assessments are priced just below the $29.95 per pupil median level of spending on summative tests in those two subjects in the consortium’s states. Smarter Balanced is offering two pricing options for states, $22.50 per student (which includes only summative tests) and $27.30 per student (which includes summative as well as interim and formative tests). The higher price tags are associated with more meaningful test items (aka no more “fill-in-the-bubble” tests).

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
PARCC released information on the field testing that will occur in 14 states and Washington DC in the Spring of 2014, for about 10% of all potential test takers. The field test will allow the states to test the accommodations policies and tools, assessment items and the technology.  Over this past summer, small-scale item tryouts occurred across ten states to begin to garner critical data. Tested items are expected to be released to the public in coming weeks.

PARCC recently released the first edition of the Accessibility Features and Accommodations Manual, along with a set of supporting communications materials.

Finally, PARCC has formally amended its grant for Race to the Top funding to fully operate as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with its own funding, board of directors, staff and programs. This change aims to provide PARCC with a long-term sustainable architecture to support states in the operations of the assessment system beyond 2014 when the Race to the Top grant comes to a close. For more, see here.

Have a good CCSS-CTE resource to share? Contact us at [email protected]!

Kate Blosveren, Associate Executive Director

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Public Policy
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Common Core State Standards & CTE Roundup

Monday, July 8th, 2013

CCSS LogoWith nearly every state in the country working to implement the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and English/Literacy, and more and more resources and information being generated by states, districts, schools and education-focused organizations to support implementation, NASDCTEc is excited to present a blog series on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Career Technical Education (CTE) that features news and resource directly impacting CTE educators as well as other materials we think are useful to the field.

Featured Resources & Tools
The Teaching Channel offers an ever-growing library of videos to support the classroom-level implementation of the CCSS, including a number of videos that could be of specific use to CTE educators, such as this video on communications and robotics, this video on designing an iPad case for teachers, and this video on inquiry-based teaching.

The Georgia Department of Education has a Wiki page to support educators as they implement the CCSS in English Language Arts/Literacy, with a specific focus on CTE, science and history teachers. While only Georgia educators can use the message boards and share resources, the site has some good introductory tools to support non-English teachers’ implementation of a literacy-focused task, including “the reading process” and “writing.”

The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) published an article entitled, “With Common Core State Standards, Why Service Learning Matters Even More.” The authors define service learning as “when the academic and service connection is deliberate and includes student initiative, authenticated needs, reciprocal collaborations with community partners, and meaningful reflection” and argue that the goals of the CCSS are intertwined with the goals of service learning.

CTB/McGraw Hill released an infographic to help explain the CCSS and related assessments and resources.

CCSS and CTE Update
The International Society of Technology Education (ISTE) has released a position statement supporting the Common Core State Standards and calling on states to align the implementation of the new content standards with the organization’s National Educational Technology Standards (NETS). Included with the position statement is an infographic.

Updates on Common Core Assessments

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
PARCC recently released updated information on the non-summative components of the assessment system, including a mid-year assessment, K-1 formative assessment tools, diagnostic assessments for grades 2-8, the speaking and listening assessment, and professional development (PD) modules for educators and administrators. None of these assessments or tools will count towards a school’s or student’s accountability score, and only the speaking and listening assessment is required for every student to take.

Notably, while all of the components were originally intended to be released in 2014-15 school year, PARCC has decided to delay the formative and diagnostic assessment tools until 2015-16 to dedicate more time to the finalization of the summative assessment components (e.g., performance-based assessments and end-of-year assessments in mathematics and ELA/Literacy). The assessment PD modules will be released next summer. See here for an update on all of these components, including procurement updates.

In other PARCC-related news, Oklahoma has decided to opt out of the PARCC assessments and develop their own Common Core-aligned assessments moving forward, citing technology challenges and costs. The state has not yet decided to fully leave the PARCC consortium or stay on as a “participating state,” which carries no major responsibilities or commitments at this time.

In June, PARCC held three Twitter Town halls, the transcripts of which can be found here.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
As a reminder, Smarter Balanced now has online practice tests that aim to give educators, parents and students a preview of the full assessment system set of come online in 2014-15.  To learn more about the practice tests, see the Smarter Balanced website.

 

Have a good CCSS-CTE resource to share? Contact us at [email protected]!

Kate Blosveren, Associate Executive Director

 

 

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Public Policy, Uncategorized
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Welcome to the New Blog Series – Common Core State Standards & CTE Roundup

Monday, June 3rd, 2013
CCSS LogoWith nearly every state in the country working to implement the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and English/Literacy, and more and more resources and information being generated by states, districts, schools and education-focused organizations to support implementation, NASDCTEc is excited to launch a new blog series on the Common Core State Standards and Career Technical Education! The blog will feature news and resources that directly impact CTE educators as well as other materials we think are useful to the field.
 

Featured Resources & Tools

Project Lead the Way has created an alignment tool that will allow Project Lead the Way (PLTW) teachers in pre-engineering and biomedical sciences to identify where the PLTW curricula align with the Common Core State Standards for each course.

Student Achievement Partners updated and upgraded their website dedicated to CCSS implementation tools, “Achieve the Core,” with new CCSS-aligned materials and resources for struggling students;  two new professional development modules including PPTs, videos, facilitator’s instructions, and hands-on activities; evidence guides for instructional practice that provide specific guidance for what the CCSS look like in planning and practice; and information on how educators can support the Common Core beyond their school communities.

Aspen Institute created a set of short introductions to the CCSS for parents and other stakeholders.

Governor John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable, wrote a letter to the Republican National Committee in support of the CCSS.

CCSS and CTE Update

In May, the GED Testing Service announced that they will be aligning the 2014 GED test to the voluntary College and Career Readiness (CCR) Standards for Adult Education, recently released by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE). GED has been undertaking research efforts over the last few years to better align the high school equivalency test to “college and career readiness” and the decision to use these standards, according to the GED Testing Service, aims to help bridge the gap from high school dropout to middle-skills jobs.

The CCR Standards for Adult Education, commissioned by OVAE, identify a subset of the Common Core State Standards in English/Literacy and mathematics found to be most relevant in preparing adult students for success in higher education and training programs. The standards have been bundled into five grade-level grouping to reflect the levels of adult learning, which cover the full K-12 standards in both content areas.

Updates on Common Core-Aligned Assessments

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
PARCC is launching a Twitter Town Hall series, beginning on June 5 between 6-7 pm ET, utilizing the hashtag #askPARCC. For the full list of the series and their topics and hosts, see the announcement.

PARCC also recently released an updated FAQ and glossary of key terms, both of which can be downloaded here.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
Last month, Smarter Balanced released online practice tests to give educators, parents and students a preview of the full assessment system set of come online in 2014-15.  To learn more about the practice tests, see the Smarter Balanced website.

Have a good CCSS-CTE resource to share? Contact us at [email protected]!

Kate Blosveren, Associate Executive Director

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Resources
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PARCC Releases New Assessment Blueprints and Test Specifications

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

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

By admin in News, Resources
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