Schools and Districts Get Help to Determine Resources Necessary for New Common Core Assessments
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Schools and Districts Get Help to Determine Resources Necessary for New Common Core Assessments
Tallahassee, Fla., March 6, 2013 - The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) has announced a new planning tool and guidance for schools and districts that will help them get ready for new, 21st century assessments in the 2014-2015 school year. Florida is one of 45 states and three territories working to implement Common Core State Standards and one of 18 governing states leading the partnership's assessment development effort. Florida also serves as PARCC's fiscal agent.
While the new standards will be clearer and fewer, they call for students to have deeper understanding of what they learn. New assessments will be computer-based, use different techniques to measure learning, and ask students to apply what they have learned. Test items will resemble classroom work students do during the school year and will be less like a conventional fill-in-the-bubble or short-answer test. Examples of the item prototypes are on the PARCC website.
To help districts prepare for the changes, PARCC has developed a planning calculator that schools and districts can use to figure what technology resources they will need to administer the tests in 2014-15.
PARCC has also released guidance that provides schools and districts with more information about the design of the assessments in English language arts/literacy and mathematics, as well as the number of testing sessions and the approximate time it will take students to complete the assessments.
There is a list of frequently asked questions (PDF, File Not Found) on the Florida Department of Education website.