Common Core test is on track, State Board told - by John Fensterwald
Four states have encountered serious glitches and system meltdowns over the past several weeksas they have moved their own state assessments online. But the head of the state-led consortium creating the Common Core tests for California and two dozen other states expressed confidence Wednesday that his organization is working closely with states and taking precautions to avoid significant problems.
Willhoft, at the State Department of Education on Wednesday, said he foresaw no major obstacles to rolling out the completed Common Core assessment in two years. Photo by John Fensterwald.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is one of two state consortiums – the other is PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) – that is committed, under a federal contract, to introduce the much-anticipated computer-based assessment in the spring of 2015. Students in grades 3-8 and grade 11 will be tested in English language arts and math.
“We are on schedule and ready to roll,” Smarter Balanced Executive Director Joe Willhoft said in an interview after testimony before the State Board of Education.
The consortium has posted minimum computing requirements and a bandwidth calculator that schools can use to measure capacity. It has also said that it would
