When the best teachers in the country compare the online assessments built around the Common Core State Standards to prior state assessments, they've agreed that the new tests from PARCC and Smarter Balanced are better. That's the conclusion in a new report issued by the National Network of State Teachers of the Year.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/30/15
The states that make up the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) have released test questions from this year's PARCC assessments to allow teachers and parents to see just exactly what makes up the online tests.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/20/15
Even as PARCC has begun offering additional formats for its Common Core state standard-aligned assessments, it has attracted a new member.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/17/15
The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers will be customizing its online testing offerings to expand its reach into states outside of the consortium.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/12/15
Curriculum Associates has updated its i-Ready reading, language arts and mathematics program in an effort to provide teachers insight into how well their students understand the Common Core State Standards.
For the first time ever, most states will be giving their end-of-year, high-stakes tests in elementary and middle school via technology other than pencil and paper.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/05/15
Now that results are being released for last spring's Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessments, state education representatives face the challenge of explaining what the bad news means to their constituents. Some states may choose to stick with their own assessments, which show better results. In other places, leaders are holding tight and educating the public about why their states need to reboot their expectations for student learning.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 10/29/15
This month's innovator, Lisa Manross, discusses the value of blended and flipped learning in the context of Common Core.
University admissions officers are ho-hum about the essay question. According to a survey of 300 colleges and universities, only a handful of them will expect applicants to submit their score from the new SAT's essay section.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 10/05/15
DDoS attacks are regularly launched on school systems to expose student records and hold information hostage. More often, DDoS attacks cause testing outages.