Students who score 4 or 5 on the test meet or exceed expectations under PARCC’s raised expectations for New Mexico’s standards, and are indicators a student is ready for college or a career. A vast majority of students fell short when it came to proficiency in math.
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The state Board of Education is scheduled to adopt New Jersey’s cut scores at its November. 4 meeting, after the scheduled release of statewide PARCC data.
In a Friday afternoon conference call with reporters, Skandera described this as a transitional year, as students and educators around the state adjust to the more rigorous Common Core standards, which have been adopted by New Mexico and about 40 other states.
“We do not believe PARCC test results should be used for any high-stakes decisions regarding teacher evaluation or pay or for the students to assess progress”, said Charles Goodmacher with the National Education Association New Mexico. “We said, you know what, we are going to raise our expectations”, said Skandera.
APS also beat out Santa Fe School district in math, English and language arts.
State education officials acknowledged the low scores but said improvement among the grade levels shows the gap is closing. “But we worked with districts across the state and, this year and next year, a three will count for graduation”.
Students were tested in mathematics based on the course they were enrolled in that year.
“It is very important that our students and our staff know that this is not the end; it’s the beginning”, said Skandera.
The PARCC test is a test that many opposed, while a few students outright refused to take it.
The results show more than 44 percent of juniors met or exceeded English and language arts expectations while less than 27 percent of freshman scored at the same level.
Skandera said that, while at least 15 other options are available to satisfy graduation requirements – commonly called “alternative demonstrations of competency – the PARCC exam is the “first and primary way” to demonstrate competency. It is more hard”, Skandera said.
“At first glance, as our mission is to improve graduation rates among all students, the first priority will be to focus on those students in eleventh grade who are approaching graduation”, Hand said.
New Mexico was one of 11 states that gave the tests last spring.
“Our students didn’t all of a sudden get worse”. The scores will sit there without any kind of meaningful comparison to past testing. Statewide, college- and career-ready math scores for the two levels of algebra were roughly 17 percent, and for geometry, 12.6 percent.
Aggregate results for students in grades 3-8 will be released on October. 30.
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High school test results were the first to be released.
