Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


PARCC Unveils Common Core Assessment Blueprints and Test Specs

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) has released blueprints and test specifications for its English and math assessments. The documents are intended to help teachers prepare students for the new online assessments that will begin in 2014-2015.

PARCC assessments are aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and are designed to measure college and career readiness. The English language arts (ELA) and literacy blueprints provide teachers with information about PARCC ELA rubrics, as well as guidelines and worksheets to help them select ELA texts appropriate for instruction. The math documents include evidence tables to help teachers understand how PARCC integrates math practices and content and how standards can be combined.

Both the English and math documents are intended to give teachers more information about the reporting categories planned for the PARCC summative assessments. "These materials allow teachers to see 'under the hood' of the assessment, to understand how the different elements work together to assess student mastery of the CCSS," said Wendi Anderson, director for PARCC/Innovative Assessment at the Arizona Department of Education, in a prepared statement.

The new PARCC blueprints and test assessments are the result of several rounds of reviews and revisions conducted over the last year and a half by classroom teachers, higher education faculty, PARCC staff members and consultants, and ETS and Pearson staff. According to PARCC, the documents reflect "the highest quality alignment to the Common Core State Standards and the vision of the next-generation PARCC assessment system."

PARCC plans to continue to update the blueprints and test specifications as part of the assessment development process.

Further information about the PARCC assessment blueprints and test specifications can be found on the PARCC site.

About the Author

Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • digital graph

    Building Genuinely Data-Informed School Districts

    Schools today generate enormous amounts of data. The difference between collecting it and using it effectively often comes down to quality, access, and context.

  • abstract electronic circuit board 3d rendering

    Content Infrastructure, Governance Lag Behind Agentic AI Adoption

    AI agents have moved into mainstream enterprise use, but the content infrastructure needed to support them has struggled to keep up, according to a new report from cloud content management company Box.

  • abstract spiral of multi colored lights

    OpenAI's New Astra Model Reaches Critical Cyber Threshold

    OpenAI has introduced GPT-6 Astra, its most capable broadly deployed model and the first system the company says has reached the "Critical" cybersecurity capability threshold under its Preparedness Framework.

  • circuit patterns

    Anthropic Intros Lower-Cost Claude Sonnet 5

    Anthropic has launched Claude Sonnet 5, positioning the model as its most autonomous mid-tier offering to date and a lower-cost alternative to its flagship Opus 4.8 system. The company said the model can plan multi-step tasks, operate tools such as browsers and terminals, and complete agentic work at a level that previously required larger and more expensive models.