Access for All: Exploring the PARCC Accessibility Features and Accommodations Manual

Goal of Assessment – The PARCC assessments will enable teachers, schools, students and their parents to gain important insights into how well critical knowledge, skills and abilities essential for young people to thrive in college and careers are being mastered. The PARCC Assessment Review 2

Performance Based Assessment PBA* – summative – March 2 through March 27 End Of Year EOY Assessment* – summative – April 27 through May 22 4 & 8 Science HS Biology Total Assessment Time PBA + EOY = ~ 9.5 hours NJ TESTING Windows

PBA: performance-based assessment EOY: end of year assessment LAT: literary analysis task RST: research simulation task NT: narrative task EBSR: evidence-based selected response TECR: technology-enhanced constructed response PCR: prose-constructed response New Acronyms: General 4

APIP: accessible portable item profile PNP: personal needs profile New Acronyms: A&A Manual 5 The PARCC Assessment Delivery Platform will be compliant with the new Accessible Portable Item Profile (APIP) which will be able to read an individually-programmed student APIP Personal Needs Profile (PNP), and provide specified features to increase accessibility and accommodations to each student on the assessment, based on their PNP.

ELA: Literacy, Comprehending Complex Texts, Writing effectively Math: Solve grade-level/course level problems aligned to standards and 8 Mathematical Practices PARCC “Claims” – On Track for College and Career Readiness 6

Meet in Groups of 3-4 Use the Note Catching form to answer the 3 questions Rank these questions in order of importance to the group Be prepared to share out the work of the group Shared Concerns 7

Accommodations are adjustments to the testing situation, format, or administration. Accommodations do not reduce learning expectations. Accommodations are generally consistent with those already provide from classroom instruction and classroom instruction. Accommodation Language 8

Accessibility in Your Classroom All children have unique learning styles and needs Technology offers new and exciting ways to increase accessibility for all students PARCC member states have all agreed to implement the principles, policies, and procedures set forth in the PARCC Accessibility Features and Accommodations Manual.

Universal Design By applying principles of universal design, leveraging technology, embedding accessibility features, and allowing a broad range of accommodations, PARCC intends to provide opportunities for the widest possible number of students to demonstrate knowledge and skills while maintaining high expectations for all students to achieve the CCSS.

“Warning” pg.16 The accommodations and conditions in this manual are provided to ensure a valid and reliable score on the PARCC assessments, not to provide an unfair advantage to those students who receive accommodations. Accommodations or other conditions provided outside these guidelines many change the construct of what is intended to be assessed and will call into question the reliability and validity of the score and may not report what a student knows and is able to do as measured on the assessment. 11

A New Vision for Accessibility Apply principles of universal design for accessible assessments during every stage of the development Minimize/eliminate features of the assessment that are irrelevant to what is being measured Measure the full range of complexity of the standards Leverage technology for the accessible delivery of assessment Build accessibility throughout the test itself without sacrificing assessment validity Use a combination of ‘accessible’-authoring and accessible technologies from the inception of items and tasks Engage state and national experts

Accessibility & Accommodations Accommodations and features used on the PARCC assessments are generally consistent with those use in daily instruction.

Process for Developing Accessible Assessments Accessible Assessments Accessibility Training Assessment Tasks/Item Development Common Accommodations and Accessibility Policies Item Review Manual Implementation Guidance Educator Engagement Field Test Research Results

Common Standards – Common Expectations – Common Access What’s New: Common accommodations and participation policies for students with disabilities, English learners, and English learners with disabilities. Technology Accessibility features for all students Increased involvement of all teachers in identifying tools What’s Similar: Role of the IEP teams and English learner teams Many accommodations currently used in states

PARCC Accessibility Features & Accommodations Manual

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PARCC Comprehensive Accessibility Policies 18 Features for All Students Accessibility Features* Identified in advance Accommodations **

Accessibility Features for All Students 19

20 Accessibility Features Identified in Advance

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

22 Presentation Accommodations

23 Response Accommodations

24 Other Accommodations

Accommodations for English Learners

26 Accommodations for English Learners

27 Translation Policy PARCC will develop translations of its mathematics assessments into Spanish and other languages as necessary, but use of the translated assessments will be a state decision. The additional costs associated with translating and administering assessments in languages other than English will be shared by the states that use them.

28 Look for new resources from PARCC this fall at

Meet with same partners Brainstorm actions that can be taken Use the note catcher to plan at least one action Prioritize actions as a group to report out 29 Partner Share – Plan of Action

Contact Us Questions about Accessibility: – Danielle Griswold, Program Associate – Policy, Research, and Design – Tamara Reavis, Senior Advisor – Assessment Equity and Accessibility Bob Price: – Director of Curriculum and Instruction NVCC, NJ ELC Member – – This power point and information related to this discussion can be found at nvcc.nvnet.org Go To Resources 30