Maryland is a Governing State in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a consortium of 24 states working together to develop an assessment system aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The new assessments will be anchored in college and career readiness; provide comparability across states; and be able to assess and measure higher-order skills such as critical thinking, communications, and problem solving.

The assessments will be computer-based and will include a mix of constructed response items, performance-based tasks, and computer-enhanced, computer-scored items.

PARCC will assist educators in the classroom by providing instructional tools to support implementation, student achievement data, professional development modules, and educator-led training to support “peer-to-peer” training. K-12 educators across the consortium of PARCC states will be involved throughout the development of the PARCC assessments and related instructional and reporting tools to help ensure the assessment system provides the information and resources educators need most.

The PARCC assessments will be fully implemented in Maryland in the 2014-15 school year and will replace the Maryland School Assessments.

To view the PARCC Frameworks and additional information about the new assessments, visit the PARCC website at www.parcconline.org.

To view sample test items for PARCC, click here.
 
To learn more about Maryland’s involvement in PARCC, click here.