Testing Group Wrestles With 'College Readiness' Meaning

Arlington, Va.

The unprecedented work to design assessment systems for the Common Core State Standards is bringing together K-12 and higher education in new ways. But it is also forcing new and sometimes uncomfortable discussions about the heart and soul of the enterprise: the meaning of college readiness.

Both the collaboration and the tensions were on display here recently as K-12 and collegiate leaders from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC , one of the two federally funded state assessment consortia, met to discuss a draft definition of college readiness in mathematics and English/language arts that would undergird the performance levels on its tests in 2014-15.

At issue was the approval of a draft statement to circulate for further input. But three hours of discussion by the three dozen K-12 and higher education representatives from 18 states couldn’t produce the necessary consensus, so the statement will undergo further revision and a vote before its release. A revised draft was released for...