The New Jersey Department of Education has recently become an active partner of PARCC. PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a consortium of states. The goal with this consortium is to create and build a common group of assessments in English and math for college students in kindergarten through senior year of secondary school and also to supply a benchmark to make certain students are stored on pace to have core skills to reach your goals in college and/or their respective careers.
These new K-12 assessments will develop a pathway to college and career readiness by the end of secondary school, mark students’ progress toward this goal from 3rd grade up, and supply teachers with timely information to share with instruction and supply student support. The PARCC assessments will likely be ready for states to administer throughout the 2014-15 school year. PARCC received a $186 million grant through the U.S. Department of Education’s Race for the Top assessment competition to support the expansion and form of the next-generation assessment system.
New Jersey’s transition for the Common Core State Standards within the next few years will likely be backed up by a connected transition with a next-generation assessment system. By selecting an evaluation system now, New Jersey educators can contribute more substantially to the critical decisions in the growth of the machine and will have more time to create focused curriculum and instructional plans using the assessment specifications. Following a careful review of both next-generation systems, New Jersey decided to turn into a Governing state in PARCC.
Understanding this mandate by New Jersey educators and teachers is essential mainly because it affects not just that they teach but how they will likely be evaluated inside their careers. New Jersey chose PARCC for a lot of reasons.
First, the accountability system in PARCC includes four assessments throughout the entire instructional year. As such, the accountability product is according to multiple assessments administered at different points in the year, so students can demonstrate their knowledge and skills through the school year. This will de-emphasize the impact of any one test score because all four test scores will likely be weighted to calculate an accountability score. The interim tests can provide instructional relevant data to teachers during the entire school year so they can target interventions inside a more timely and personalized way for each student.
Second, due to substantial federal funding received by ten other PARCC members, New Jersey educators will have more opportunity to share resources across states to improve instruction and learning.
Third, PARCC membership will ease comparisons of student results across states, like a majority of states within PARCC are eastern or southern states. These states include New York, Delaware, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
The NAFTA, or New Jersey Association of Federal Program Administrators, will be holding its’ annual Winter Training Institute on December 2nd, 2011 at the Eatontown Sheraton in Eatontown NJ. Mr. Jeffrey Hauger, from the New Jersey Department of Education, is going to be presenting complete information about how this program will affect school districts in New Jersey. This is an NJ educator professional development event and attendees can earn professional development hours by attending.
More important, however, are these claims gives teachers and educators from across the state a chance to meet personally the consumer set to oversee PARCC. This is one of several events Mr. Hauger will be presenting to be able to explain the NJDOE’s planned implementation of PARCC. The goal of each presentation will be to provide top quality model instructional units and prototypes of the through course assessments. The practical implementation of this system requires all districts to administer these assessments through computer networking.
In totality, PARCC’s goals are ambitious and can give a uniform standard to guide the education process for those students. The assessment system includes a pathway to varsity and career readiness for many students. These assessments will probably be of good quality and measure the full variety of Common Core State Standards. The information furnished by these assessments will give you greater support for educators inside the classroom. Some people oppose standardizing student assessment due to the implications and connect to teacher pay and tenure decisions. PARCC, however, addresses many from the issues that an evaluation program such as this offers.
