• Nearly every state in the nation is working individually and collectively to improve its academic standards and assessments to ensure students graduate with the knowledge and skills most demanded by college and careers

• The Common Core State Standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics were created by educators around the nation

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A Strong Foundation: The Common Core State Standards

46 States + DC Have Adopted the Common Core State Standards

*Minnesota adopted the CCSS in ELA/literacy only

MATHEMATICS

Focus, coherence and clarity: emphasis on key topics at each grade level and coherent

progression across grades

Procedural fluency and understanding of concepts and skills

Promote rigor through mathematical proficiencies that foster reasoning and

understanding across discipline

High school standards organized by conceptual categories

Key Advances of the Common Core

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS/LITERACY

Balance of literature and informational texts; focus on text complexity

Emphasis on argument, informative/ explanatory writing, and research

Speaking and listening skills

Literacy standards for history, science and technical subjects

ANCHORED IN COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS

• Common Core State Standards are critical, but it is just the first step

• Common assessments aligned to the Common Core will help ensure the new standards truly reach every classroom

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What’s Next?Common Assessments

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)

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PARCC AssessmentsELA/Literacy and Mathematics, Grades 3–11

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Beginning of School Year

End of School

Year

DiagnosticAssessment

Mid-Year Assessment

Performance-Based

Assessment

End-of-Year Assessment

Speaking and Listening

Assessment

Optional Required

Key:

Flexible administration

Higher Expectations

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ELA/Literacy

Read sufficiently complex texts independently

Write effectively to sources

Build and present knowledge through research

Math

Solve problems: content and mathematical practice

Reason mathematically

Model real-world problems

Have fluency with mathematics

• Summative Assessment Components:– Performance-Based Assessment (PBA) administered as close to the end of the

school year as possible. The ELA/literacy PBA will focus on writing effectively when analyzing text. The mathematics PBA will focus on applying skills, concepts, and understandings to solve multi-step problems requiring abstract reasoning, precision, perseverance, and strategic use of tools

– End-of-Year Assessment (EOY) administered after approx. 90% of the school year. The ELA/literacy EOY will focus on reading comprehension. The math EOY will be comprised of innovative, machine-scorable items

• Non-Summative Assessment Components:– Diagnostic Assessment designed to be an indicator of student knowledge and

skills so that instruction, supports and professional development can be tailored to meet student needs

– Mid-Year Assessment comprised of performance-based items and tasks, with an emphasis on hard-to-measure standards. After study, individual states may consider including as a summative component

Goal #1: Create High Quality Assessments

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Goal #2: Build a Pathway to College and Career Readiness for All Students

K-2 3-8 High School

K-2 formative assessment

being developed,

aligned to the PARCC system

Timely student achievement data showing students, parents and educators

whether ALL students are on-track to college and career

readiness

ONGOING STUDENT SUPPORTS/INTERVENTIONS

College readiness score to identify who

is ready for college-level coursework

SUCCESS IN FIRST-YEAR,

CREDIT-BEARING, POSTSECONDARY

COURSEWORK

Targeted interventions &

supports:•12th-grade bridge courses• PD for educators

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Goal #3: Support Educators in the Classroom

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MODULES

INSTRUCTIONAL TOOLS TO SUPPORT IMPLEMENTATION

EDUCATOR-LED TRAINING TO SUPPORT “PEER-TO-PEER” TRAINING

TIMELY STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT DATA

K-12 Educator

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Goal #4: Develop 21st Century, Technology-Based Assessments

PARCC’s assessment will be computer-based and leverage technology in a range of ways:Item Development

Develop innovative tasks that engage students in the assessment process

AdministrationReduce paperwork, increase security, reduce shipping/receiving & storageIncrease access to and provision of accommodations for SWDs and ELLs

ScoringMake scoring more efficient by combining human and automated approaches

ReportingProduce timely reports of students performance throughout the year to inform

instructional, interventions, and professional development

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Goal #5: Advance Accountability at All Levels

PARCC assessments will be purposefully designed to generate valid, reliable and timely data, including measures of growth, for various accountability uses including:

School and district effectiveness

Educator effectiveness

Student placement into college-credit bearing courses

Comparisons with other state and international benchmarks

PARCC assessments will be designed for other accountability uses as states deem appropriate

Looking Ahead

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June 2013 • Guidance on Participation in Field Test and Practice Tests• Final Subject- and Grade-Level Performance Level Descriptors Adopted• Final Accommodations Manual Adopted

Summer 2013• Additional Sample Items • Estimates for Assessment Cost• Notification to Schools/Districts Selected for Field Test

Fall 2013• Design of Student Score Reports• Minimum Technology Specifications, version 3.0• Training for IEP Writing Teams Based on Accommodations Manual• Sample Items Re-Released in PARCC Technology Platform

Spring 2014 • Field Test Administration and Practice Test

Fall 2014 • Operational Assessment Administration Manual

SY 2014-15 • Operational Administration of PARCC Summative Assessments

Summer 2015 • Standard Setting

Throughout 2013-14 • Additional Guidance to Districts on Assessment Administration

Advances in the PARCC ELA/Literacy Summative Assessment

August 2013

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PARCC is designed to reward quality instruction aligned to the Common Core State Standards, so the assessment is worthy of preparation rather than a distraction from good work.

PARCC’s Fundamental Advance

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• Questions Worth Answering: Sequences of questions that draw students into deeper encounters with texts are the norm (as in an excellent classroom), rather than sets of random questions of varying quality.

• Texts Worth Reading: The assessments use authentic texts worthy of study instead of artificially produced or commissioned passages.

• Better Standards Demand Better Questions: Instead of reusing existing items, PARCC is developing custom items to the Standards.

• Fidelity to the Standards: PARCC evidence statements are rooted in the language of the Standards so that expectations remain the same in both instructional and assessment settings.

PARCC’s Core Commitments to ELA/Literacy Assessment Quality

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1. Complexity: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language.

2. Evidence: Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text, literary and informational.

3. Knowledge: Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction.

What Are the Shifts at the Heart of PARCC’s Design (and the Standards)?

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Nine Specific Advances in the PARCC ELA/Literacy Summative Assessment

Demanded by the Three Common Core Shifts. . .

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1. PARCC builds a staircase of text complexity to ensure students are on track each year for college and career reading.

2. PARCC rewards careful, close reading rather than racing through passages.

3. PARCC systematically focuses on the words that matter most—not obscure vocabulary, but the academic language that pervades complex texts.

Shift 1: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language

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4. PARCC focuses on students rigorously citing evidence from texts throughout the assessment.

5. PARCC includes questions with more than one right answer to allow students to generate a range of rich insights that are substantiated by evidence from text(s).

6. PARCC requires writing to sources rather than writing to de-contextualized expository prompts.

7. PARCC also includes rigorous expectations for narrative writing, including accuracy and precision in writing in later grades.

Shift 2: Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text, literary and informational

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8. PARCC assesses not just ELA but a full range of reading and writing across the disciplines.

9. PARCC simulates research on the assessment, including the comparison and synthesis of ideas across a range of informational sources.

Shift 3: Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction

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Advances in the PARCC Mathematics Summative Assessment

August 2013

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What Are the Shifts at the Heart of PARCC’s Design?

1. Focus: The PARCC assessment will focus strongly where the Standards focus.

2. Coherence: Think across grades and link to major topics within grades.

3. Rigor: In major topics, pursue conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and application.

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Advances in Assessment Demanded by the Shifts

Shift #1 – Focus: The PARCC assessments will focus strongly where the Standards focusAdvance: 70% or more on the major work in grades 3-8. •Focus allows for a variety of problem types to get at concept in multiple ways.•Students will have more time to master concepts at a deeper level.

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Advances in Assessment Demanded by the Shifts

Shift #2 - Coherence: Think across grades, and link to major topics within gradesAdvance: The assessment design is informed by multi-grade progressions in the Standards and the Model Content Frameworks.•Key beginnings are stressed (e.g., ratio concepts in grade 6), as are key endpoints and takeaway skills (e.g., fluency with the multiplication table in grade 3).

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Advances in Assessment Demanded by the Shifts

Shift #2 - Coherence: Think across grades, and link to major topics within gradesAdvance: Integrative tasks draw on multiple standards to ensure students are making important connections.•The Standards are not treated

as a checklist.

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Advances in assessment demanded by the shifts

Shift #3 - Rigor: In major topics, pursue conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and applicationAdvance: PARCC assessments will reach the rigor in the Standards through innovations in technology and item design.

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The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers

Website: www.PARCConline.org Sample Items: http://www.parcconline.org/samples/item-task-prototypes

Twitter: @PARCCPlace