The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a consortium that includes the Department of Defense Educational Activity and the

Bureau of Indian Education The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) is a division of the U.S. Department of the Interior under the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs that directs and manages education functions. Formerly known as the Office of Indian Education Programs ...

. Consortium members work to create and deploy a standard set of K–12 assessments in Mathematics and English, based on the

Common Core State Standards The Common Core State Standards Initiative, also known as simply Common Core, was an American, multi-state educational initiative begun in 2010 with the goal of increasing consistency across state standards, or what K–12 students throughout th ...

. The PARCC consortium was awarded Race to the Top assessment funds in September 2010 by the

U.S. Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a United States Cabinet, cabinet-level department of the federal government of the United States, United States government, originating in 1980. The department began operating on May 4, 1980, havin ...

to help in the development of the K–12 assessments. PARCC has included educators in the development of its assessments and will consult with more than 200 postsecondary educators and administrators in the development of the assessments.

Background

Before

No Child Left Behind The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was a 2002 United States Act of Congress promoted by the presidential administration of George W. Bush. It reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and included Title I provision ...

, The

Elementary and Secondary Education Act The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11, 1965. Part of Johnson's "War on Poverty", the act has been one of the most far-rea ...

was passed in 1965 as a part of the "War on Poverty"."Elementary and Secondary Education Act"
, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. OSPI, n.d. Web (October 11, 2011). In hopes of diminishing the

achievement gap Educational Inequality is the unequal distribution of academic resources, including but not limited to school funding, qualified and experienced teachers, booksphysical facilitiesand technologies, to socially excluded communities. These communiti ...

, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed to create equal opportunity and access to education through high standards and accountability. These standards and accountability techniques came in the form of standardized testing. For the first time, federal money was being sent into local schools and made the production of test-based evidence mandatory for all educators. Standards were being assessed on these state-created exams, and local schools were then accountable to perform on these exams. In 2002, Congress re-examined ESEA and reauthorized it as No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). ESEA created the accountability tool known as

Adequate Yearly Progress Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) was a measurement defined by the United States federal No Child Left Behind Act that allowed the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country was performing ...

(AYP). AYP is a required statewide accountability system which requires each state to ensure that all schools and districts make AYP. AYP is simply a “statewide accountability system mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 which requires each state to ensure that all schools and districts make Adequate Yearly Progress". Since ESEA was passed, states and schools across the country have been working to improve its academics standards and assessments to ensure students graduate with the knowledge and skills most demanded by college and careers. As a result of NCLB, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have created state standardized tests for all children that are mandatory for graduation from high school. These tests are known as "high-stakes testing" in which schools, administrators, and teachers all become accountable for the test scores of their students.

Changes

In 2015, the PARCC consortium reevaluated their assessment program based on feedback from the community of schools, educators, and other consortium members. "After a deep evaluation of the assessment system, PARCC adjusted the requirements to include one summative Assessment (SA) to be completed towards the end of the year," a change implemented for the 2015–16 school year.

Assessment

The PARCC assessments cover two courses – English language arts/literacy and mathematics – for students between Grade 3 and Grade 11. These exams are intended to be used as indicators of student needs and progress for teachers to identify and address.Powerpoint Infographic
''Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers'' Web site (October 11, 2011). PARCC has also developed a resource library called the Partnership Resource Center, which provides both teachers and parents with access to "computer-adaptive text complexity diagnostic tools". This initiative is designed to ensure students have access to appropriate-level texts and are prepared to enter college and careers at the right level. The PARCC assessment is in the process of transitioning to a completely computer-based assessment system, and in the second year of assessments (2015–16), the vast majority of students who took the tests did so on a computer. The assessment platform of choice is TestNav provided by Pearson and the

TAO The Tao or Dao is the natural way of the universe, primarily as conceived in East Asian philosophy and religion. This seeing of life cannot be grasped as a concept. Rather, it is seen through actual living experience of one's everyday being. T ...

Open Source platform has been chosen for non-summative assessment portions.
''parcc selects open source platform for nonsummative assessments'' When administering the PARCC assessment, states will be able to tailor the exams to their standards, classes, and other accountability tools that are unique to each state.

Membership

In the spring of 2010, the District of Columbia decided to join what was, at the time, a group of 24 PARCC states, which included: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. On September 23, 2013, Florida withdrew from Common Core and PARCC, citing unconstitutional involvement by the federal government in states' affairs. In July 2013, a more accurate price estimation was made at $29.50 per student, higher than expected. Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Alabama, Georgia, and Indiana have each filed the appropriate documentation to withdraw from the PARCC consortium as a result of the increased cost and rising public concern about the Common Core Standards. As of March 25, 2014, only 14 states plus the District of Columbia remained in the PARCC consortium. States that had withdrawn included: Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Utah. On January 16, 2015,

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

's state government voted to withdraw from PARCC. On June 30, 2015, Ohio Governor John Kasich, along with the Ohio House and Senate, agreed to drop the PARCC Mathematics and English assessments after its first year of implementation. PARCC tests were not administered in Ohio during the 2015–2016 school year. On July 12, 2016, the Illinois State Board of Education voted to continue giving the PARCC test to students grades 3–8, while high school students will take the SAT instead of PARCC. In March 2024, the three active PARCC members were the

District of Columbia Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

(hybrid, and grades 3-10 only),

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

(hybrid, and grades 3-8 only), and

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

(hybrid, and grades 3-10 only). PARCC assessments are also used by the federal

, and the

Department of Defense Education Activity The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) is a federal school system headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, responsible for planning, directing, coordinating, and managing prekindergarten through 12th grade educational programs on beh ...

. Beginning in the 2023-2024 school year, the

left the PARCC consortium and started their own assessment, DC CAPE.

Test Participation by States

{, !State!!Current Participation Status , - , , , dropped February, 2013 , - , , , dropped May, 2014 , - , , , dropped July, 2015 , - , - , , , dropped September 2013 , - , , , dropped April 2024 , - , DoDEA , current user , - , , , dropped July, 2013 , - , ~~Illinois~~, , dropped March 2019 , - , , , dropped June 2014 , - , , , dropped January, 2014 , - , Louisiana, , uses hybrid PARCC/state test , - , , , , dropped September, 2018 , - , Massachusetts, , uses hybrid PARCC/state test , - , , , dropped January, 2015 , - , , , dropped February, 2019 , - , , , dropped January, 2019 , - , , , dropped July, 2013 , - , , , dropped June 2015 , - , , , dropped July 2013 , - , , , dropped March 2014 , - , , , dropped April 2017 , - , , , dropped June, 2014"Who will develop Tennessee’s next standardized test? Here are some contenders"
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208141635/http://tn.chalkbeat.org/2014/09/17/who-will-develop-tennessees-next-standardized-test-here-are-some-contenders/ , date=2015-12-08 . ''

Chalkbeat Chalkbeat is a non-profit news organization that covers education in several American communities. Its mission is to "inform the decisions and actions that lead to better outcomes for children and families by providing deep, local coverage of ed ...

Tennessee'', September 17, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2015.

References

External links

PARCC Practice Tests

PARCC Sample Items

Prepare for PARCC

PARCC Practice

Common Core Math Will Reduce Enrollment in High-Level High-School Courses
Educational organizations based in the United States