Presented by Jeff Nellhaus, Director of PARCC Assessment for Achieve, at the PARCC Massachusetts Launch Conference for Public Higher Education on October 28, 2011, in Leominster, MA. More information about PARCC available at www.mass.edu/parcc and www.parcconline.org.

1. PARCC
The Partnership for Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers
Massachusetts Governing State Visit
October 28, 2011
Leominster, MA
Jeffrey Nellhaus
Director, PARCC Assessment
Achieve, Inc.
Washington, DC
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2. A Strong Foundation:
The Common Core State Standards
• Content Areas
– English language arts/literacy
– Mathematics
• State-Led Effort: Sponsors
– Council of Chief State School Officers
– National Governors Association
• Contributors
– K-12 and Higher Education faculty and leaders from
across the nation
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3. 45 States + DC Have Adopted the
Common Core State Standards
*Minnesota adopted the CCSS in ELA/literacy only

4. Key Features of the Common Core
MATHEMATICS ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS/LITERACY
Focus on student mastery of key Address domains of reading, writing,
concepts at each grade. language, speaking and listening
Call for procedural fluency as well as Give attention to both literary and
understanding of concepts and skills informational texts and focus on text
complexity
Promote rigor through mathematical
practices that require students to model, Emphasis on argument, informative/
reason, and make math arguments explanatory writing, and research
High school standards organized by Include literacy standards for history and
conceptual categories, so they can be social sciences, science and technical
organized into a variety of course options subjects
ANCHORED IN COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS

5. Partnership for Assessment of Readiness
for College and Careers (PARCC)
Governing Board States Participating States
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6. PARCC is State-Led
K-12 and Postsecondary Roles in PARCC
K-12 & Higher Education Faculty and Leaders
• Will be involved throughout the development of the PARCC
assessments and related instructional resources
• MA PARCC Leadership Team: Aundrea Kelley and Bob Bickerton
Postsecondary Faculty & Leaders, in particular will play a major
role in
• Defining college- and career-readiness
• Identifying the standards that will be emphsized on the high
school assessments
• Determining the threshold scores on the high school
assessments that indicate that students are likely to succeed
in entry-level, college, credit-bearing courses
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7. PARCC’s Goals
1. Create high-quality assessments
2. Build a pathway to college and career readiness
3. Support educators in the classroom
4. Promote innovation and strategic use of technology
5. Provide valid and reliable information for
accountability systems
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8. Goal #1: Create High Quality
Assessments
Priorities of PARCC Assessments:
1. Determine whether students are college- and career-ready or on
track
2. Assess the full range of the Common Core Standards, including
standards that are difficult to measure
3. Measure the full range of student performance, including the
performance of high and low performing students
4. Provide data during the academic year to inform
instruction, interventions and professional development
5. Provide data for accountability, including measures of growth
6. Incorporate innovative approaches throughout the system
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9. Goal #1: Create High-Quality
Assessments
Flexible
Diagnostic Mid-Year Assessment
Performance-Based End-of-Year
• Early indicator of • Performance-based
Assessment (PBA) Assessment
student knowledge • Emphasis on hard to
• Extended tasks • Innovative, computer-
and skills to inform measure standards
• Applications of concepts based items
instruction, supports, • Potentially
and skills
and PD summative
ELA/Literacy
• Speaking
Summative
Non-summative • Listening
assessment
assessment
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10. Goal #1: Create High Quality
Assessments
The PARCC assessments will allow us to make important claims
about students’ knowledge and skills.
• In English Language Arts/Literacy, whether students:
– Can Read and Comprehend Complex Literary and Informational Text
– Can Write Effectively When Analyzing Text
– Have attained overall proficiency in ELA/literacy
• In Mathematics, whether students:
– Have mastered knowledge and skills in the area of highest importance
for a particular grade level – fractions in grade 4; proportional
reasoning and ratios in grade 6
– Have attained overall proficiency in mathematics
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11. Goal #2: Build a Pathway to College and
Career Readiness for All Students
Targeted
K-2 formative Timely student achievement College
interventions &
assessment data showing students, readiness score
supports:
being parents and educators to identify who
•12th-grade bridge
developed, ali whether ALL students are on- is ready for
courses
gned to the track to college and career college-level
• PD for educators
PARCC system readiness coursework
SUCCESS IN
High FIRST-
K-2 3-8 YEAR, CREDIT-
School BEARING, POSTS
ECONDARY
COURSEWORK
ONGOING STUDENT SUPPORTS/INTERVENTIONS
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12. Goal #3: Support Educators in the
Classroom
INSTRUCTIONAL TOOLS TO
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
SUPPORT IMPLEMENTATION
MODULES
K-12 Educator
TIMELY STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT EDUCATOR-LED TRAINING TO SUPPORT
DATA “PEER-TO-PEER” TRAINING
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13. Goal #4: Make use of technology in all
phases of the system
PARCC’s assessments will be computer-based and use technology
in a range of ways to:
• Item Development
– Develop technology enhanced tasks
• Administration
– Increase access to and provision of accommodations for SWDs and ELLs
– Reduce paperwork, increase security, reduce shipping/receiving & storage
• Scoring
– Make scoring more efficient by using human and automated approaches
• Reporting
– Produce timely reports of students performance throughout the year to
inform instruction, interventions, and professional development
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14. Goal #5: Support Accountability
• PARCC assessments will be purposefully designed to
generate valid, reliable and timely data, including measures
of growth, for various accountability uses including:
– School and district accountability systems
– Educator effectiveness
– Student placement into college-credit bearing courses
– Comparisons with other state and international benchmarks
• PARCC assessments may be used for other accountability
uses as states deem appropriate (e.g., in MA, the high school
competency determination)
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15. PARCC Timeline
SY 2012-13 SY 2013-14 SY 2014-15 Summer 2015
SY 2010-11 SY 2011-12
First year Second year Set
Full
pilot/field pilot/field achievement
Launch and Development administration
testing and testing and levels,
design phase begins of PARCC
related research related research including
assessments
and data and data college-ready
collection collection performance
levels
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16. Jeff Nellhaus
Director, PARCC Assessment
Achieve
jnellhaus@achieve.org
202.419.1540
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College
and Careers
www.parcconline.org
www.achieve.org
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