Ohio is among 22 states that are working as a consortium, called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), to develop a common set of K-12 assessments in English and mathematics. The assessments are based on what it takes to become ready for college and careers. States will begin administering the tests during the 2014-2015 school year.
To check for updates log onto the PARCC Homepage. Take a look at PARCC Item and Task Prototypes under The PARCC Assessment section. These prototypes are just the first of the items and tasks that PARCC will share over time. Together they will represent the full range of assessment tasks on the PARCC assessments that begin in 2014-2015.
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Professional Learning Modules
PARCC has developed a series on professional learning modules to help teachers, counselors, school leaders, and testing coordinators understand the new assessments. These tools will help educators learn how to read results from the assessments, make inferences about the results, and identify learning gaps in time to make relevant instructional decisions and modifications.
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Model Content Framework
The Model Content Framework is to serve as a bridge between the Ohio's New Learning Standards and the PARCC assessments. They are designed to:
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Blueprints and Test Specifications
PARCC has released a set of test specification documents including assessment blueprints and evidence-statement tables to help educators understand the design of the PARCC assessments. You can view and download several sets of specifications for mathematics including evidence statement tables.
View and download the Evidence Tables and Information Guides
Understanding the Evidence Statement Tables
Blueprints are a series of documents that together describe the content and structure of an assessment. These documents define the total number of tasks and/or items for any given assessment component, the standards measured, the item types, and the point values for each.
Evidence statement tables and evidence statements - Describe the knowledge and skills that an assessment item or a task elicits from students. These are aligned directly to Ohio's New Learning Standards, and highlight their advances especially around the coherent nature of the standards.
Performance-Based Assessment (PBA) - Administered after approximately 75 percent of the school year. The mathematics performance-based assessment will focus on applying skills, concepts and understandings to solve multi-step problems that require abstract reasoning, precision, perseverance and strategic use of tools.
Mid-Year Assessment (MYA) - comprised of performance-based items and tasks, with an emphasis on hard-to-measure standards. After study, individual states may consider including the mid-year assessment as a summative component.
End-of-Year Assessment (EOY) - administered after approximately 90 percent of the school year. The mathematics end of year assessment will call on students to show further conceptual understanding of the Major Content and Additional and Supporting Content of the grade and course (outlined in the PARCC Model Content Frameworks), and demonstrate mathematical fluency when it is applicable to the grade.
Information Guides - guides for each grade/course that provides information about the design and structure of the PARCC Mathematics Summative Assessments. These guides were created with the following goals:
Assist educators in understanding the content of each summative assessment.
Inform instruction by indicating which Evidence Statements are assessable on the PBA only, both the PBA and EOY, and the EOY only
Provide information regarding policies for administration of the PARCC Mathematics Summative Assessments.
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Performance Level Descriptors (PLDs)
The Performance Level Descriptors (PLDs) are available to download and review by grade level, course, grade band, all high school courses, or as a complete package. In mathematics the performance levels at each grade are written for each of five assessment sub-claims: (1) major content; (2) additional and supporting content; (3) reasoning; (4) modeling; and (5) fluency for grades 3-6.
The performance levels within each claim are differentiated by a number of factors. These are consistent with the inclusion of the standards for both mathematical content and mathematical practices as well as PARCC’s Cognitive Complexity Framework for Mathematics. For more details about the factors, see the introductory PowerPoint presentation.
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Practice Tests* PARCC has released free, online practice tests that are available to all schools and districts. The tests include technology-enhanced items and are on the same technology platform used for testing, which allows students and educators in all PARCC states to become more familiar with the types of items on the PARCC assessments. The practice tests include a sample of assessment items for each grade level and course and are accompanied by guidance on scoring. Some accessibility features and accommodations are included on the practice tests to allow students to interact with the tools and supports that will appear on the test, such as color contrast, magnification and notepad features. To access the practice tests, click the Practice Tests tab at the top of the web page.
Math and English Language Arts Sample Items Released
The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) has posted sample items in math and English language arts on a new, interactive platform. The sample items originally appeared on the PARCC website as PDF documents. Now, students, teachers, and parents will be able to click on and complete the sample items to get a better sense of how the online tests will work.
Below are links to the sample items for three grade bands.
PARCC also is offering online tutorials that demonstrate how students will navigate the math and English language arts tests. Meanwhile, for those who are interested in technology training or are looking for more information on test administration, PARCC has a series of video modules.
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These documents provide guidance for calculator usage on Ohio’s State Mathematics Tests for the 2014 – 2015 school year. This guidance applies to the level of the test and not the grade level of the student taking the test. For example, a middle school student taking an Algebra I or Geometry test is permitted to use the allowable calculator for high school for each of these tests.
Accessibility Features and Accommodations
Test Manuals and Training
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Last Modified: 1/28/2015 4:09:30 PM
Pursuant to ORC 3301.079 (B) (3) and 3313.60, it is the responsibility of Ohio's local boards of education to vet and approve curriculum and educational materials for use in the public schools within their district. The use of any materials posted or linked to on the Ohio Department of Education website, including materials within the Common Core State Standards or Appendices or any state model curricula or other educational resource material, is entirely up to the discretion of each local board of education.