PARCC

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

The new PARCC reading and math assessments are aligned to the Maryland College and Career-Ready Standards and define the knowledge and skills all students should master by the end of each grade level in order to graduate from high school fully prepared to enter college and the workforce. PARCC will provide comparability across states, and be able to assess and measure higher-order skills such as critical thinking, communications, and problem solving. The assessments will be computer-based and include a mix of constructed response times, performance-based tasks, and computer-enhanced items. Paper-pencil PARCC state assessments will be available for at least three years during the transition to online testing, and will be available for special needs beyond the transition.

PARCC is an advanced assessment that will assist educators in the classroom by providing instructional tools to support implementation of the new standards and assessments, student achievement data, professional development modules, and educator-led training to support “peer-to-peer” training. K-12 educators across the consortium of PARCC states have been involved throughout the development of the PARCC assessments and related instructional and reporting tools to help ensure the assessment system provides the information and resources educators need most.

Toolkits for understanding PARCC are available on this MSDE webpage and also at www.UnderstandTheScore.org.