Deer Park PLCs

The SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) is one of two multi-state consortia awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Education to develop an assessment system based on the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Washington State is a member of the SBAC consortium and, in fact, serves as the fiscal agent for the consortium. The other consortium is the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC).

Using support from participating states, institutions of higher education, and industry, both SBAC and PARCC will develop sets of assessment tools, each designed to serve specific purposes. The goals of each organization is to provide student data throughout the academic year that will inform instruction, guide interventions, help target professional development, and ensure an accurate measure of each student’s progress toward career and college readiness.

The documents below provide some insight into the work presently going on around the creation of these new assessments. In the same way that we are working to align curriculum and instruction to the Common Core, these assessment consortia are working to align assessments to the standards – our work can benefit greatly from the work being done in these consortium groups.

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SBAC Math Content Specs. (DRAFT COPY – Aug. 2011) This content mapping of the Common Core mathematics standards – with content specifications for assessment – provides clear and rigorous prioritized assessment targets that will be used to translate the grade-level Common Core standards into content frameworks along a learning continuum, from which test blueprints and item/task specifications will be established. Assessment evidence at each grade level provides item and task specificity and clarifies the connections between instructional processes and assessment outcomes.

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SBAC ELA Content Specs. (DRAFT COPY – Sept. 2011) This is the same document as above except for it is a content mapping of the Common Core English language arts and literacy standards – with content specifications for assessment.

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SBAC Eligible Content (FINAL REPORT – March 2011) This report is a descriptive analysis of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), intended to determine which content is eligible for the Consortium’s end-of-year summative assessment for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in grades 3–8 and high school. The high school standards analyzed were those in grades 9–10 and 11–12 for ELA, and all conceptual categories for mathematics. All high school standards were analyzed, since which high school content will be included in the summative grade 11 assessment has yet to be determined. Outcomes of this analysis are intended as a starting point to inform discussion as the Consortium designs its summative assessment and develops its test and item specifications.

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PARCC Math Content Frameworks (FINAL COPY – Nov. 2011) This public review draft of the PARCC content frameworks adds more detail about courses, including suggesting priorities in the course introductions, the “Key Advances,” “Connections to Practices,” and “In-Depth Focus” sections for each course, but it does not specify full details of the courses. Further specification will be provided in the future to the degree necessary so that courses can be aligned properly with the assessments being designed by the consortium states. The Model Content Frameworks provide initial, high-level guidance.

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PARCC ELA Content Frameworks (FINAL COPY – Nov. 2011) This is the same document as above except for it is PARCC content frameworks for English/Language Arts.

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PARCC Public Feedback Document (NEW!!) In the fall of 2011, the PARCC Model Content Frameworks documents (above) underwent a rigorous review process by states and the public at large. During the August/September 2011 public review period, nearly 1,000 individual comments were submitted from K–12 educators, principals, superintendents, higher education faculty, school board members, parents, and students. In fact, 77% of all respondents were teachers, curriculum directors, or building administrators. The frameworks writing teams carefully considered the feedback and made revisions attending to recurring, major themes. This helpful document is an accounting of how the content frameworks have changed as a result of this feedback.