Preparing for Common Core Assessments
High-stakes testing is about to change dramatically. As states and school districts strive to implement the Common Core standards and welcome more rigorous, online exams in 2014, school leaders are working to ensure that teachers have the tools they need to prepare students to succeed on these next-generation assessments.
With the generous support of Measured Progress, we’ve compiled this collection of stories to help you and your school leadership team best meet the challenges of the Common Core assessments.
—The Editors
Common Core testing will require digital literacy skills
The shift toward online exams aligned with the Common Core standards will require much more preparation than simply making sure networks can handle the extra bandwidth constraints and…
Ed-tech leaders brace for online testing
What keeps ed-tech leaders up at night? Making sure their schools are prepared to roll out high-stakes testing to students online by the 2014-15 school year is a…
How to prepare for Common Core testing—and why current teacher evaluation systems won’t help
To prepare for more rigorous assessments aligned with the Common Core standards, teachers will need more time and opportunities to collaborate with each other, education professor Linda Darling-Hammond…
New online assessments to include accommodations for students with disabilities
One of the two state consortia developing next-generation assessments to be taken online is seeking comments on a draft policy that proposes accommodations for students with disabilities who…
More training is key to better school data use
Schools and districts have come a long way in gathering and analyzing data to help boost student achievement, but according to a new report from the Data Quality…
Ohio schools test-drive state’s online assessment system
A colorful pie chart appears on the screen, inviting pupils to create their own colonies, figuring out how best to allocate their resources.…
Parents, educators want more from assessment
Thanks to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, K-12 educators are spending more time than ever before on testing their students' skills—but is all this testing doing…
States to launch ‘IT readiness’ tool for common assessments
As two state consortia work to create next-generation common assessments to help make testing more meaningful for students and teachers, a new tool will launch later this month…
Performance assessment making a comeback in schools
Spurred by a federal directive to use “multiple measures” of student success, performance assessment is reemerging as a strategy to delve more deeply into students’ skills.…
Tips for making the move to online assessments
As states move toward implementing online assessments in 2014, a panel of experts agreed that school technology leaders must ensure that districts have the capacity, manpower, and foresight…
Additional resources
The Common Core State Standards: How well are existing items aligned?
Educators anxious to give their students a head
start with the Common Core State Standards may
be intrigued by classroom assessment products on
the market that are purported to be tightly aligned
to the Common Core State Standards in English
language arts and mathematics. However, there’s
more to alignment than meets the eye.