The Secretary awarded grants under the Race to the Top Assessment program on September 28, 2010, to the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced).

On January 7, 2011, PARCC and Smarter Balanced each entered into a cooperative Agreement with the Department regarding these grants. The agreement is intended to provide for substantial communication, coordination, and involvement between the Department and the grantee to ensure the success of the grant.

Race to the Top Assessment Awards

Consortium	Award letter	Cooperative agreement	Final budget summary table
PARCC	PDF (102K)	PDF (176K)	PDF (78K)
Smarter Balanced	PDF (102K)	PDF (139K)	PDF (55K)

Supplemental Award

As noted in the grant award notice, PARCC and Smarter Balanced were each provided a supplemental grant award to support the work in their approved application and budget to successfully transition to the new standards and assessments. Each received a supplemental grant award of $15.9 million from the remaining unallocated funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). The consortia were encouraged to include activities in their supplemental budget that focused on:

• developing gap analyses between current and new standards, curriculum analysis tools, professional development related to the new standards and assessments including support for educators to better understand the content of the new standards, and state and local assessment audits to determine what assessments will no longer be needed;
• enhancing technology to be used in the assessments systems, including assessment delivery and
• supporting educator understanding and use of assessment results, and other steps needed to build the professional capacity to implement more rigorous common standards.
  • PARCC supplemental budget summary PDF (94K)
  • Smarter Balanced supplemental budget summary PDF (123K)

Race to the Top Assessment State Membership

Membership information as of July 1, 2014
*Fiscal agent for the grant

Note: For information on the distinctions and roles between governing and participating states, see section C of the Race to the Top Assessment Frequently Asked Questions PDF (652K)

Amendment Process

• Guidelines for grantees requesting to amend the grant project PDF (139K)

Amendment Decision Letters

PARCC

Amendment Decision 1: 5.16.11 PDF (193K) Amendment Decision 2: 8.1.11 PDF (135K) Amendment Decision 3: 9.16.11 PDF (32K) Amendment Decision 4: 12.15.11 PDF (170K) Amendment Decision 5: 2.9.12 PDF (153K) Amendment Decision 6: 6.17.13 PDF (169K) Amendment Decision 7: 7.25.13 PDF (167K) Amendment Decision 8: 8.21.13 PDF (149K) Amendment Decision 9: 9.9.13 PDF (165K) Amendment Decision 10: 7.25.14 PDF (160K) Amendment Decision 11: 10.3.14 PDF (148K) Amendment Decision 12: 2.12.1 PDF (135K) Amendment Decision 13: 4.16.15 PDF (134K) Amendment Decision 14: 7.15.15 PDF (150KB)

Smarter Balanced

Amendment Decision 1: 11.22.11 PDF (203K) Amendment Decision 2: 5.4.12 PDF (92K)        Updated Workplan PDF (285K) Amendment Decision 3: 5.18.12 PDF (126K) Amendment Decision 4: 1.25.13 PDF (192K) Amendment Decision 5: 3.1.13 PDF (139K) Amendment Decision 6: 4.26.13 PDF (60K) Amendment Decision 7: 8.2.13 PDF (129K) Amendment Decision 8: 10.21.13 PDF (109K) Amendment Decision 9: 12.2.13 PDF (131K) ) Amendment Decision 10: 4.15.14 PDF (115K) Amendment Decision 11: 6.27.14 PDF (98K) Amendment Decision 12: 10.2.14 PDF (94K) Amendment Decision 13: .2.19.15 PDF (135K)