text: Recent PARCC assessment updates and news (week of 9/23/13) - Brain Hurricane
  Recent PARCC assessment updates and news (week of 9/23/13)
  We've fielded a lot of questions recently about the PARCC online assessments, including:
  "What do students need to know?"
  "When will the consortium release new info regarding...?, etc."
  The answers to these questions are often available, but they may not be common knowledge. With that in mind, here's a rundown of the newest PARCC news and information we felt required sharing:
  PARCC puts out bids for various technical aspectsAccording to a new Education Week article, the folks at PARCC recently requested bids for the tests, specifically to establish a platform for delivering the tests and developing a data management and storage system. PARCC is referring to these requests as a "technology bundle", and this bundle comes with quite a price tag – approximately $17 million.
  It's important to note this "technology bundle" doesn't include analytics. Also, the PARCC won't release the specific bid awards until December. The short time between now and the scheduled testing roll-out in 2014 may present a crunched time period for the creation, testing, and operation of these elements.
  The need for test modeling and practice becomes more apparentThe new bid requests are not the only recent development ifor the PARCC assessments. Teachers and administrators we interact with are noting the new need for their students to be able to satisfactorily use tablets and computers. This, in turn, may require additional instruction in basic keyboarding, testing functionality, and word-processing.
  While teachers and administrators aren't reluctant to ensure that students are digitally literate, finding the time and resources for that instruction can add to the challenge. The value of teaching digital literacy is something we've discussed before and will be increasingly imporant as the online Common Core tests arrive.
  However, this defection hasn't seen widespread acceptance. According to the Massachusetts education Commissioner Mitchell Chester, the PARCC tests will be "ready on time". Rhode Island's education Commissioner Deborah Gist also reaffirmed her state's choice to stay the course with PARCC, mentioning that the online Common Core-based tests will be "worth taking" because they require students to solve "real-world problems, apply knowledge, show their work, and explain their answers."