The PARCC — New Jersey Standardized Testing

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New Jersey’s test tableau

Debuting this year is PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), one of two federally funded, multistate “consortia”-developed tests based on the recently adopted Common Core curriculum. The fledgling, computer-administered assessment — controversial in that several states once PARCC-aligned have decided against implementing it — will test once each year between 3rd and 8th grades, plus once in high school, in English and math. 

An additional science requirement, via the being-phased-out NJ ASK (Assessment of Skills and Knowledge), is also part of the regimen for grades 4 and 8. Other tests, like the CogATs (Cognitive Abilities Test) are given on a district basis but are not mandated.

Finally, high school juniors face non-mandatory but highly recommended SAT and/or ACT college entrance exams.

How are scores used?

That’s a lot of testing — and a ton of numbers to crunch.

In New Jersey, the state Department of Education creates school performance reports that look at growth over years, explains Julia Sass Rubin, PhD, associate professor at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and cofounder of the parent-advocacy group Save Our Schools NJ. Test scores have also been used to determine if students can graduate from high school, decide placements and even determine if a low-performing school should restaff or close. 

Because PARCC is so new, the New Jersey Assembly recently passed a bill that would delay the punitive or rewarding consequences of test scores on student placement or teacher evaluation for three years, beginning in school year 2015-16; the Senate has yet to vote on it.

The gamut of opinion

Given the way standardized testing affects their job — both day-to-day and in the long-term — teachers are closely monitoring the debate and coming down on both sides of the matter.
The New Jersey Education Association teachers’ union released four 30-second videos criticizing the impact standardized tests have on curriculum, student stress and school funding (click here to watch them). "This ad campaign gives parents and teachers a voice in a debate that's been dominated for too long by people with no connection to what's really happening in classrooms today," explained NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer. 

Governor Chris Christie is advising a wait-and-see approach to the expensive test — expected to cost $108 million over its first four years of adminstration. "The fact is, people are opposed to PARCC and they haven't even taken it yet," Christie said. "It's hard for me to make a decision about whether PARCC works or doesn't work until I see what the results are. 

"When we get all that information, if we have to make changes, we will,” Christie continued. “But the bad thing would be to not test at all, in my view. If we don't test at all, we only depend on the subjective opinion of each classroom as to whether you're achieving or not and no standard way to see whether how you're learning at your particular school.”

“This conversation should not be about tests,” said David Hespe, commissioner of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association. “Tests should not be the highest elevation of what we aspire to in education — learning is. Our PARCC assessment will become only one tool towards accomplishing this larger goal of improving student learning. We so often lose the context that education so badly requires.”

Next page: objections raised and the opt-out movement

 

Objections raised

While many parents and teachers recognize a value to standardized testing if used in a constructive manner, how to do that is up for discussion. Main objections include:

  • valuable learning time lost to test prep
  • time lost in the computer lab where tests are administered
  • the inclination to “teach to the test” as opposed to focusing on a freer, broader curriculum
  • failing to improve educational outcomes by narrowing topics taught to just those covered by the test
  • increasing costs to districts for test-administration infrastructure 
  • the way test prep absorbs teacher professional-development time 
  • the stress standardized testing places on students
  • privacy concerns — educators have confirmed that Pearson, the testing company behind PARCC, has been monitoring student social-media streams in real time for posts or images about the test, adding a layer of Big Brother oversight that worries detractors already anxious about the data potentially mined from students’ personal information and scores.

The opt-out movement

Voorhees mom of two Carolyn Kim, for example, has opted her 5th-grader out of the PARCC for more personal reasons. “Aidan is a child who does not love and has struggled with reading,” she says. “This year, his teacher has gotten him excited about reading through novel studies with the kids.”

After Kim took an online practice to see what Aidan would face on the PARCC, she felt that he would be expected to read and write on a 6th- or 7th-grade level. “I thought, ‘This is going to undo everything his teacher has done, all his excitement for reading. He’s going to read this, get discouraged and feel like a failure.’ I’m not going to put him through that.”

Says a local mom of three who requested anonymity, “My son resents [testing] so much, he has purposely done badly, drawing patterns with the dots rather than actually attempting the test.”

Nationwide, parents who feel likewise are joining together through their PTA and social media in a grass-roots opt-out movement. While it’s too early to cull overall numbers statewide, Rubin says that this year, 1,000 students opted out in Princeton alone. 

As the opt-out movement gains momentum among both parents and teachers, districts are trying to figure out how to respond. Schools could lose funding if they have less than 95 percent of 
students taking the standardized tests, so administrators aren’t encouraging families to take this tack. “I’m discouraged that people are opting out,” said Gov. Christie. “I think it’s shortsighted to do that, but that’s their conclusion and call.”

For now, opt-out protocol in New Jersey is up to the individual district. Kim sent a letter to her superintendent removing Aidan from the PARCC in proper semantics for her district — “I had to say, ‘I refuse for my child to take the test,’ ” she explains. 

She considers her decision to opt Aidan out of taking the PARCC an act of civil disobedience. “We’re speaking up because we don’t like where education is heading in this country,” Kim says. “It’s not about the fact that it’s too hard and we’re coddling our kids. We are refusing because the tests are developmentally inappropriate and it’s just one piece of a larger, complex problem in education. We have to start somewhere.” 

 

Here are the four PARCC-critical ads put out by the New Jersey Education Association.

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