The pending decision has created a debate that will affect every MA student.
Advertisement
At Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s request, the state Board of Education voted earlier this year to end the state’s involvement in PARCC and pursue a contract instead with ACT and ACT Aspire.
The results from the new and more challenging English and math tests, as expected, were bleak. PARCC results would not affect schools’ accountability ratings until 2017.
The reception to PARCC has been decidedly mixed.
“The new tests measure different things – such as where students are in developing the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills outlined in the Colorado Academic Standards”.
Projected to be a boon to efficiency for school districts and state education officials, the computerized tests brought with them a rather obvious challenge: Districts had to make sure they had enough computers.
In a statement, Teach Plus said it “agrees with the commissioner that “MCAS has reached a point of diminishing returns” and ‘PARCC is a substantial advancement over our current MCAS test'”.
Allen said the PARCC exam threshold is set at a higher level, meaning that certain students who may have good grades in the classroom could still fall into the remediation category based on college readiness testing.
“Teachers we work with across the state emphatically believe that we need an assessment that inspires excellent instruciton, and that PARCC is that test”, the group said, adding that “For PARCC, the only test prep is great teaching”.
And the MCAS still has its supporters.
In September, Education Secretary James Peyser suggested simply keeping the MCAS exam and just hiking the proficient score in math – the higher score would improve students’ math performance in college and the working world, Peyser argued.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is scheduled to vote November 17 on whether to stick with the in-house-developed MCAS, switch to the PARCC system or develop a new measurement for student achievement and college readiness.
Chester also serves as chairman of the national PARCC governing board.
The Colorado Department of Education will only use this data to provide a baseline of scores since this is a new a test.
Twenty states were once using PARCC.
Just 11 of those states and the District of Columbia were still on board when the PARCC was administered for the first time in the spring.
For the next MA standardized test, Mitchell Chester has picked “Door No. 3” – a blend of the two tests students took last spring.
Although DeWitt is glad a few of the mandates have been rolled back, he couldn’t help but comment on the “irony” that befell District 6, which struggled to meet all of the mandates only to see state-level leaders roll back numerous consequences associated with not meeting them.
Advertisement
“We in MA have been No. 1, and we want to stay No. 1, and we need to be able to control our education destiny”, said state Rep. Keiko Orrall, R-Lakeville, who fears the state would lose control over its assessments if it remains in the multi-state PARCC consortium.
