College and Work Readiness Assessment Information Sheet

New Technology Network What is the CWRA? The College and Work Readiness Assessment (CWRA) is a performance-based student assessment created by the Council for Aid to Education (CAE). The assessment is intended to measure higher order thinking skills that are central to the demands of postsecondary education and the workforce. Students are administered a task that requires them to demonstrate an integrated set of critical thinking, problem solving, analytic reasoning and written communication skills. How is the CWRA administered and scored? The assessment is administered to students online during a 90-minute time frame. Students are presented with an authentic task along with source documents such as articles, maps, abstracts, charts, graphs, etc. and are asked to construct a response. All tasks are scored by CAE scorers who evaluate students responses along several dimensions, including thesis development; evaluation, analysis, and synthesis of information; drawing conclusions; acknowledging multiple perspectives; and written communication skills such as mechanics, persuasiveness, and development. Who takes the CWRA? Students in grades 9 and 12 take the CWRA. 9th graders are administered the assessment in the Fall (Aug-Oct) while 12th graders take the assessment in the Spring (Feb-Apr). Summary reports are provided comparing the schools results with other participating high schools. Student data files are also sent to sites to allow staff to look at results alongside local data. How much does the CWRA cost? The cost of administering the assessment is $40/student. NT will cover the cost of your students to participate. Why is NTF using the assessment? In order to better understand the impact of the NT model on students development of 21st century skills, we have identified the CWRA as a potential tool to provide both school staff and the Network with benchmarking data. Who can participate? Our goal is to identify a group of NT schools whose staff can implement the CWRA in 2011-12. Specifically, sites will need to 1) have enrolled 9th and 12th graders in 2011-12, 2) willingness to participate in a fall and spring administration of the assessment, and 3) able to fully participate as a consortium to share results, ways to use the data to inform our practice, and provide feedback on the usefulness of the assessment. Your school has been chosen to increase the breadth of our current results. Where do I get more information? More information on the assessment and the 2010-2011 results will be provided at NTAC. If you have any immediate questions, please contact Hillary Fernandes at NTF at hfernandes@newtechnetwork.org. You can also view more information about the CWRA on CAEs website: http://www.cae.org/content/pro_collegework.htm

To Confirm Please email Hillary by 7/15 with your intent to participate, or your need to decline.