Next Generation Assessments

Preparing Students for College and Careers

How do we prepare our students locally to compete and succeed globally? That is the goal of Next Generation Assessments. As the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), and individual states work to redesign assessment programs with this objective in mind, they are fundamentally shifting how we develop, deliver, and score assessments—and how the data is used to improve teaching and personalize learning.

Most students will be taking assessments online and be given multiple opportunities throughout the year to demonstrate progress. Innovative approaches to item development and scoring, such as the expanded use of performance tasks, computer adaptive testing, and automated scoring, will leverage new technologies to provide richer, timelier feedback to teachers, students, parents, and policymakers. Ultimately, these assessments will be integrated into a next-generation teaching and learning system.