Monday, July 22, 2013

PARCC releases Performance Level Descriptors for ELA/Literacy

by Derek Spencer


The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) recently released its "Performance Level Descriptors" for ELA/Literacy in grades 3 – 11. Here are the descriptors for grades 9 – 11:


This set of descriptors explains the criteria PARCC will use to score students. It appears that students will be assigned a "performance level" between 2 and 5, with 5 being the highest rating.

PARCC is a consortium of 22 states (plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands) working on new assessments that will adhere to Common Core State Standards requirements. These assessments will be delivered via computer but, unlike the assessments delivered by the Smarter Balanced consortium, will not be computer adaptive.

Tests that are computer adaptive deliver different questions to a student based on that student's response to the previous question. If a student answers a question correctly, the next question will be more difficult (and vice-versa). PARCC's computerized assessments will be more traditional; all students will take the same test.

What do you think about computerized testing? Do you think computerized adaptive testing can work in an ELA setting?




Derek Spencer is a Marketing Communications Associate at Prestwick House.

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