Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)

Some of you reading this blog may have seen the story on CBS 3 Springfield regarding the PARCC pilot in Belchertown (click here to read the story and see the video). PARCC stands for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, a consortium of several states working to establish an assessment system designed to help us determine how well our students are prepared for the twenty-first century challenges in college and the workplace. You can read more about PARCC and look at some sample test items at: http://www.parcconline.org/.

Purpose of the PARCC

If all goes as expected at the October State Board of Education meeting, PARCC will be chosen to eventually replace our current state assessment system, the MCAS. In order to prepare for its implementation, pilot assessments will be given to selected students in many districts across Massachusetts this spring. These assessments will take place in two windows of time: mid-March to mid-April, and early-May to early-June. There will be two types of assessments. The first type, given during the earlier window, is a performance-based assessment (PBA). These assessments are designed to assess students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The second type, given during the later window, are end-of-the-year assessments (EOY). These are designed to assess students' content knowledge and skills after a year of instruction.

PARCC Pilot

This year's PARCC assessment will be administered to a small number of students, about 15% of the total population state-wide. This will give us information about the nature of the assessments, what it will take to administer them, and what issues might need to be ironed out in the process. Because this is a pilot, there will only be limited results reported and none of these results will be used to rate schools or educators. We recently received information from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) indicating which grades will be tested, how many classrooms will be randomly selected, and how many sessions each. The grades and assessments that will be given in Belchertown are as follows:

School Name	Grade/Course	Subject Area	Number of Classes	Mode of Admin.	Component	Number of Sessions1
Chestnut Hill Community School	4	Mathematics	2	Paper	EOY	2
Swift River Elementary	3	ELA	2	Paper	EOY	2
Jabish Middle School	7	ELA	2	Online	PBA	3
Jabish Middle School	8	ELA	2	Online	PBA & EOY	5
Belchertown High	Algebra I	Mathematics	2	Online	PBA	2

Why the upcoming switch?

The PARCC is designed to measure new national standards in English Language Arts and Math, known as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Massachusetts is one of 45 states to have aligned its state curriculum frameworks to the CCSS. Teachers in Belchertown worked together to write curriculum in these two areas that align with the new standards. There's a lot to this topic, so check this blog next week with more on the CCSS.

As more information about PARCC and the pilot becomes available, we will be sure to update you via this blog. Be on the lookout in the next couple of weeks via this blog and our district web site, www.belchertownps.org, for information about an opportunity to discuss both the PARCC and the CCSS during our first quarter Coffee and Conversation with the Superintendent gatherings in each of our schools.

As always, if you have any questions about this blog post, please feel free to call me at 413.323.0423 or email me at superintendent@belchertown.org.

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools