As of today, the nonprofit manager of a major standardized test purportedly aligned to the learning standards in the Common Core has been dissolved.
PARCC Inc., which managed tests administered by states in the multi-state consortium known as PARCC, which is an acronym for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, was officially dissolved by action of its board of directors. The consortium, which once included more than 20 states but today includes only Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia, with Illinois participating in elementary and middle school, still stands, thanks to various memorandums of understanding, many of which are available here.
But the manager of those tests, which once claimed actual ownership of the copyright interest in the test questions, has been eliminated. Many of the people who ran the nonprofit have moved on to other challenges, including Laura Slover, the final CEO of PARCC Inc, who now finds herself serving as CEO of CenterPoint, alongside Lillian Lowery, the former state superintendent of schools in Maryland, who is acting as the vice president of PreK-12 policy, research, and practice for CenterPoint.
The long-term future of the PARCC tests is unknown at this point, but current contracts between the states in the consortium and testing companies like Pearson will provide for compliance with state and federal testing mandates in the meantime.
Many details involving the transfer of intellectual property in the tests are still being worked out. We will provide information as soon as we can.
