Update on Curriculum and Assessment

State requirements will bring higher academic standards and a new generation of standardized assessments to Bronxville. New York, like forty-four other states, has adopted the Common Core State Standards. These standards establish concepts, skills, and learning progressions that define "college readiness." For direct access to those standards, go here.

As a next step, multi-state partnerships are developing new standardized tests to measure progress toward college readiness. In the past, New York's assessments focus on the numbers of students at or above proficiency. The new assessments will describe the year-to-year gains that each student makes in English language arts and mathematics. This is called the "value-added" approach, and the results can shed light on student achievement, teacher contributions to learning, and overall school effectiveness. New York is part of a multi-state consortium, PARCC, that is designing and field testing these new instruments.

These standards and related assessments are in the early stages of development, but like other districts, Bronxville will need to prepare for full implementation. Some of the local implications include

• Aligning curriculum with the new standards;
• Preparing local assessments that match the standards;
• Carrying out professional development about the new standards and assessments;
• Managing the data (including data collection, analysis, and installing the hardware and network capacities to administer on-line testing).

Superintendent David Quattrone's presentation on these matters, including links to several useful resources, can be found here.