July is coming to a close and the new school year is right around the corner. Please let us know if you are in need of additional state standards or need assistance with new projects. AB continues to monitor the updates to Common Core and NGSS and will provide additional updates in the next Snapshot. However you can get more up to date news, as well, by following us on Twitter @commoncorner, or visiting the Common Corner news section.
Sincerely,
Academic Benchmarks
|
|
PARCC Releases Testing Costs
On July 22, Partnership For Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a consortium of 22 states designing test for common standards, released the cost of its tests at $29.50 per student. Many sources have noted that it's higher than what more than half of its members pay for tests, which is causing unease in the community. Pricing models including that of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), which was released in March, are also part of the conversation.
On the same day Georgia withdrew as one of the two state groups designing tests for the common standards. As part of the announcement, Governor Nathan Deal and State School Superintendent Dr. John Barge, cited the expense, which is estimated to be as high as $27M, a price tag that is more than the state's K-12 testing budget in total. Instead, Georgia Department of Education will work with experts in the state and will seek opportunities to collaborate with other states.
|
FEATURED CLIENT
Northwest Evaluation Association:
NWEA Latest Version of Measures of Academic Progress® for CCSS
In anticipation of the coming school year and the introduction of Common Core in the majority of states, NWEA has released a new version of their MAP assessment for CCSS. While the transition from state standards to CCSS yields a concern for fluctuation in test scores, educators can rely on a constant system for growth measurement, in the MAP assessment. Also taking into consideration the states that have opted to add their own material to the CCSS, NWEA has built has hand-aligned CCSS + 15% MAP tests. Read More. |
|
No Child Left Behind
The House of Representatives passed a bill last week reauthorizing No Child Left Behind. The bill was backed by Republicans and had little Democratic support. The reauthorization continues the testing schedule and the way the data is broken out by different learner types.
However, the bill puts the accountability measures back to the school districts and the states. The President has threatened to veto this new bill and Arne Duncan has spoken out about its inability to protect vulnerable students.
Read the full article here.
|
