Leadership Matters - April 2013

Don’t forget hardware & infrastructure when preparing for PARCC assessment

systems (O/S) are on the recommended list. Generally, PARCC recommends Windows 7, Mac O/S 10.7 and several versions of Android O/S, Chrome or Linux. Currently, Windows XP is an option, but not a recommended one. Beyond the issues with PARCC, Microsoft will not support Windows XP after April 2014. Additionally, these systems will have to be able to be “locked down” to remove student access from e- mail browsing the web, taking screen captures, etc. Your IT staff should start discussing now how to work through those issues. Some of those features are core to the operating system and may be difficult to limit without significant work on the part of the IT staff or potentially purchasing third-party software to lock down some of those functions. It may be easier in some cases to create “test specific user profiles” for the assessment, but that may require students to manage two sets of IDs and passwords. This is easier said than done with third- graders much less with sophomores.

As the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessment looms in front of us, I hear a great deal of talk about raising standards, creating a more rigorous curriculum and in many other ways preparing for the Common Core State Standards that will be tested by PARCC and Smarter Balanced. I believe that many of us are working hard to ensure our teaching staff is provided the necessary curriculum development to prepare our students for the rigors of these new exams. I am not sure that most districts realize the potential need to improve their hardware and infrastructure in order to accommodate the bandwidth Dr. Steven Baule Superintendent North Boone District 200

requirements of the testing process. Of course, preparing students for the test is of primary importance, but each district will need to ensure that they have the necessary hardware and a robust enough infrastructure to ensure that the students will have a hassle-free testing experience, that their scores will be representative of their achievements and not reflective of a poor testing environment. Matthew Kinzie, the chief technology

The point is that someone needs to be investigating this lock-down issue within the specific technology milieu of each district well before we start using the PARCC to measure student achievement. The other software issue is that secure browsers will need to be installed in order to actually administer the PARCC assessments. At the time of publication, PARCC hasn’t yet identified what

browsers will be acceptable.  Network Bandwidth: Bandwidth is potentially the most important consideration for successfully administering the PARCC assessment. Even the most well-engineered technology initiative can be brought to its knees if the necessary bandwidth isn’t considered as part of the planning. The bandwidth requirements for PARCC haven’t been finalized, but the current recommendations for external (Internet) access are 100 kbps per student or 1 Mbps per 100 students. Other recommendations floated include requiring up to 1 Gbps per 1000 students and staff. For internal networking between schools, the recommendation is for 10 Gbps per 1000 (Continued on page 8)

officer for the San Francisco Unified School District, stated “online delivery is predicated on a wonderful idea, but it is an unfunded mandate. We don’t see any funding for technology to implement online assessments.” Illinois is in a similar situation in that there is no funding allocated for building out the necessary technology infrastructure for the PARCC assessment, although State Superintendent Dr. Chris Koch has proposed a modest matching grant program in his FY2014 draft budget. Federal e-rate money may also be available for some of the connectivity development. From a technology standpoint, there are some facets related to the soon-to-be mandated testing that will need to be considered, including:  Software: The first and potentially the easiest is to ensure your desktop, laptop and/or tablet operating

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