The Board of Regents adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts & Literacy and Mathematics at its July 2010 meeting and incorporated New York-specific additions, creating the Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS), at its January 2011 meeting. The adoption of the CCLS signaled the need for educators to shift instruction to prepare students in accordance with these new, rigorous standards. In order to best assess student learning of the CCLS, the Department developed and administered new Grades 3-8 Common Core English Language Arts and Mathematics Tests in 2013. The spring 2015 Grades 3-8 tests will continue to assess only the CCLS.
In an effort to provide educators with as much support as possible regarding the instructional and assessment shifts necessitated by the Common Core, the Department has prepared 2015 Test Guides for each subject and grade. The Test Guides integrate important instructional and assessment information into a single document and detail how the CCLS in English Language Arts and Mathematics will be measured on the 2015 tests and supplement the other Common Core implementation resources found on EngageNY.
The Test Guides for English Language Arts and Mathematics will address the following topics for each grade:
- the instructional shifts demanded by ELA and Mathematics CCLS;
- how ELA and Mathematics are conceptualized in the CCLS;
- the 2015 Common Core ELA and Mathematics Tests’ content and design; and
- the CCLS rubrics for short and extended constructed response questions.
We hope the Test Guides will assist educators in their efforts to provide high quality instruction of these rigorous learning objectives. Thank you for all the work you do to support high quality teaching and student achievement.