In Attempting to Save Itself, PARCC Now Offers “Testing Options”
The whole point of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was to standardize American public education (and any private education entities that would buy in) for some supposed, fantastic sameness that would allow state-to-state comparisons on accompanying CCSS consortium-developed, “next generation” assessments.
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is one of two federally-funded testing consortia supposed to allow state-to-state comparisons of test results related to the CCSS that was *adopted* by most states.
But PARCC is crumbling fast, and the PARCC consortium is working to reinvent itself as a vendor of PARCC testing “options.”
For the 2015-16 school year, only DC and six states (Colorado, New Jersey, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Illinois) are clearly committed to the comprehensive, Pearson-vended PARCC assessments as of this writing.
Thus, in order to survive, PARCC had to offer to sell itself off in parts– which defeats the entire point of a testing consortium tied to “common” standards. Nevertheless, here is what PARCC is offering as of November 12, 2015:
New Participation Options
State Education leaders that make up the Governing Board of the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) are giving new options for all states to access high quality assessments.The Partnership states are providing a tiered approach for the 2016-17 school year that will allow any state or other educational entities to haveIn Attempting to Save Itself, PARCC Now Offers “Testing Options” | deutsch29: