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Explore guides, research papers, policy briefs, and tools to aid decisions on standards and assessments.
Common Core State Standards in 2014: District Implementation of Consortia-Developed Assessments
This report is part of a three-part series, Common Core State Standards in 2014, conducted and published by the Center on Education Policy. The series provides an in-depth look at Common Core State Standards (CCSS) implementation. The data reported from the series comes from a survey of a nationally representative sample of school districts located in Common Core-adopting states that are also members of the PARCC or Smarter Balanced testing consortia. This report uses a subset of the districts in the broader survey who reported that they intended to administer assessments developed by one of those consortia. In particular, this report “discusses district leaders’ views on the consortia assessments, plans to provide remediation and support for students who may need assistance, readiness for administering the assessment online, and plans for revising or eliminating their own math and English language arts assessments” (from the abstract). Additional findings from the survey are found in the Center on Education Policy’s two related reports: districts’ perceptions, progress, and challenges; and curriculum and professional development at the district level.
This valuable report reviews data on district perceptions of Smarter Balanced and PARCC assessments. Along with the other Center on Education Policy reports based on the same national survey, this document is well organized and presents its findings in numerous tables and figures. The fact that a majority of respondents felt it is “too soon to tell” whether these new assessments will have a positive impact, paired with their concerns that technology issues could inhibit implementation of the new assessments, signals that the report would interest state leaders and others involved in large-scale implementation of the new assessments.