PARCC state testing to be unveiled this month
Some districts opting to forgo midterms
We made it through one of the most stressful times of the school year: midterms. Our stress is finally alleviated, at least for a little while.
But, how would you feel if all of sudden, your teacher blurts out in the middle of class one day, “Midterms are cancelled!” You would probably be incredibly overjoyed and relieved. No studying for days on end. No nightlong cram sessions. No worries.
But, wait a minute. This seems like a dream. This can’t be real — it’s too good to be true. Why would you not have these tests after so many years of taking them? Why is your school finally giving in to what you have always wished for? Because you have to take state tests, of course.
Several New Jersey schools have made the decision to omit midterms or finals or midterms and finals, due to the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) tests taking up so much time. Livingston High School is one of the schools that did away with midterms, while Millburn is getting rid of finals. Glen Ridge and Verona are getting rid of both.
Nonetheless, a question that seems to be posed is the following: what exactly is the PARCC? The PAARCC seems to be this “thing” that will get mentioned briefly, but it is all a bit murky and a lot of students do not know what to expect.
There are two tests that are being distributed across the United States: PARCC and SMARTER Balanced. Both strive to determine if a student is college and career ready through assessing whether a student meets the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The PARCC is also looking to see if students are falling behind or need extra help. It is a federally funded test that is distributed in twelve states, in addition to the District of Columbia. And yes, New Jersey just so happens to be one of those states.
The PARCC will be taking place in both March and April by students in grades 3-11 (PV will be administering it March 10-12 and April 28-29). The assessment will consist of math and language arts and will be taken on computers—another aspect of a standardized test that is completely new to students.
Despite students taking tests in school, this is not a typical math or English test. The math section is less about solving problems and more about applications, like interpreting graphs. The English section will contain several primary source documents and/or sections where a student may be given anything from two to four texts and will then be asked questions based on opinion, but with evidential support correlated to the reading. A specific instance may be asking a student to pick a passage that best supports their claim. The claim-evidence writing style is specifically something that has been implemented in the classroom environment at PV, so at least the PARCC will not be completely foreign to students here.
Some students have said that they have not received any PARCC prep, which may be a bit nerve-racking, for the test will be taking place next month. However, there will not be any time set aside in the Pascack Valley classroom environment to prepare for the PARCC. Our district’s goal is to teach so that students learn and acquire new knowledge, not teach to a test.
Something that has been abuzz around school is whether the PARCC will “count” or be a graduation requirement. In a sense, it is. It is one of the several ways a student can graduate high school, but it will not be a requirement that needs to be met. In other words, if a student does poorly on the PARCC, there are other factors that are taken into account that will allow them to graduate. A high school student can score at least 400 on every section of the SAT, pass the PARCC or fulfill another graduation requirement. This year, seventh graders must pass the PARCC in order to move forward to go to eighth grade.
Pascack Valley Regional Director of Curriculum Dr. Barry Bachenheimer explained that perseverance is the main skill required to take the PARCC state exam. It is “raising the bar for 21st Century skills,” he said. On this test, students will be expected to answer many questions, one after another in a completely new format. While there may be some nerves and apprehension, Bachenheimer said, “For people who are stressing out about it, don’t… Go in and do your best.”
While the PARCC is something that we will be taking fairly soon, it is uncertain whether Pascack Valley will be getting rid of midterms and finals. Nothing is definite or decided on, but it is being taken into account. These issues are still being discussed and considered, especially the issue of New Jersey Schools testing and if there is too much of it. While tests are important to give your best effort on, it is also vital to know that these tests do not determine your future or your success. Just give it your best shot. That is all you can really do.
For more PARCC information and practice, visit http://parcc.pearson.com/practice-tests/
Rima Kaddouh • Feb 23, 2015 at 9:27 pm
Personally I’m not too accepting of the PARCC test. I understand that this is a way for the schools and teachers to be rated, but a student’s test scores won’t always be the truthful answer to how well the student or the school is actually doing. Some people retain all the information they learn and could explain everything to you, but they just don’t know how to take a test. We’re all guinea pigs because this is the first year that both teachers and students will be experiencing this. I feel like the details of the PARCC aren’t all yet figured out which is why everything is murky. I also don’t buy the fact that the PARCC is going to be used to “see if students are falling behind or need extra help” because there’s so many students so how could they possibly focus on each and every individual student? Everyone is saying not to stress and I don’t think the PARCC is deserving of stress, but subconsciously for some people when they hear the word test, they panic. Despite that I agree with Ms. Ruback about how we really shouldn’t stress about it because at the end of the day it’s just another test. When it comes to the 21st Century aspect of it, I see some flaws. Obviously this isn’t going to be perfect but already I’m leaning away from the computer idea because I feel as if there’s too much room for error. For example, as I was taking the practice test I already experienced some technical difficulties. I went through the first six sections and realized that I could only scroll through the passage on the first and sixth section easily. On the other four I had to drag the scrollbar and since it’s such a small text box, it was difficult and it made things move a lot slower. As far I know no one else has had this issue, but this shows that it could happen during the actual test and then what do you do? Overall, this is yet another state mandated test that will actually end up taking away time from our learning.
Marc Picinic • Feb 23, 2015 at 1:59 pm
People may think that the PARCC is the best thing in the world but really it isn’t. The PARCC really does not help us at all. We are one of only twelve states that are still going on to take the PARCC. Everyone is telling us to not stress when we are taking the PARCC and how can we not stress about the PARCC. Especially when you hear things like for 7th graders if you do not pass the PARCC then you are not going into the 8th grade. Now has is that fair. Us as students work so hard just to make through one year and then this random test comes saying that if we don’t pass it we cannot go up in our grade level or even graduate. Not only is this test long but also this test is the hardest test that us the students probably will have through out our high school careers. Also the fact that this test might not even count is the worst thing that probably is. We are going to spend school days taking this PARCC exam to basically determine if we are smart enough to excel but yet this test might not even count. We could spend those school days learning about something that might actually help us. Also how is this fair to all the other younger kids that are taking the PARCC exam? I myself have two little cousins that are taking the PARCC exam and all they are talking about is how much they don’t want to take it, how much they want to stop preparing for it, and how much they are scared for it. Why should 7-13 year olds be scared for this test? Also how come a lot of people are not “prepared” for this test? Not knowing what is going to be on the test just screams fail. So let me ask again why are we taking this test?
Henry Tipping • Feb 23, 2015 at 12:50 pm
I personally feel that the PARCC test is something that we should not be taking. It is not an essential and it just stresses us out even more than we already are. We have to take it twice in two months which does not make sense. I took the NJASK multiple times and I found that taking it once a year is stressful. Even though we don’t have to worry about getting a 100 on it, it doesn’t make sense to take a test that doesn’t count.
Heather Flatley • Feb 23, 2015 at 12:48 pm
The first thing that stands out to me about the PARCC is that they are testing 3rd graders to see if they are college and career ready. They have years to improve and learn about more topics and gather more knowledge. They shouldn’t be tested for this now. Neither should freshmen but that makes more sense than testing elementary and middle school students. I think it would make more sense for sophomores and up to take it because they have a better feel on how the knowledge they learned from high school and about their futures. Younger children should not be worrying abut that. As the article said PV wasn’t teaching to the test but that doesn’t mean the other schools aren’t. instead of learning things that would be useful they are being taught how to pass a single test. I the real world tests like this do not take place. People don’t randomly get tested on thing that don’t apply to life. For example, a tech designer doesn’t need to know the history of England or a surgeon doesn’t need to know how to apply context clues to things. It just doesn’t make sense to me. And whats the point of having another test to get anxious over if PV will be keeping both midterms and finals. This puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on students and that could also have an effect on their health, both mental and physical, and negatively effect their grades. So overall, I believe PARCC exams should be only required for high school and if midterms and finals both are still being taken, then it should be optional.
Ashley Walker • Feb 23, 2015 at 12:32 pm
I feel like the test is there to help us. I think that yes we should take it because it’s only for our good. The test shouldn’t be really hard but we should have some sort of test so they can what we know and what we don’t know. It shouldn’t be impossible, they make this test too hard for people our age. We should prepare for this test but we shouldn’t worry so much about it. I agree with the author that we shouldn’t worry about it because no one is going to get a100 on it. I feel like the main point for this test is to see how well the teachers are doing their jobs.
Kyle Rifkin • Feb 23, 2015 at 10:25 am
As I haven’t actually taken the PARCC exam yet, I don’t feel like I am qualified to talk on its behalf in either a positive or negative way, however, my experience with standardized tests has left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. We all had to take the NJASK in middle school and elementary school. I’m sure we all remember spending weeks before the NJASK doing nothing but prep work. That time could’ve easily been used to help teach us more things that were much more practical than writing a five paragraph persuasive essay for the fifth year in a row. I also disagree with standardized tests in general. A study by Howard Gardner in 1983 showed that people are smart in seven different ways, people can be word, logic, people, street, picture, music, body or self smart, often people have traits from multiple categories. There are people who are incredibly music smart, and picture smart, who can compose melodies and paint pictures that I couldn’t even fathom. There are people who are body smart and amazing at sports, and there are people who are logic smart, who could solve incredible math problems in seconds. To me these “standardized” tests play in huge favor of those who are logic smart, and are leaving those in the other six categories out to dry. I am also from one of the classes that have had practice testing with the software, in both my math and English classes. From the look of the practice test, it seems pretty tedious, answering large amounts of multiple choice questions that require you to go back and read the passage to support your answer. The PARCC exams to me seem like a headache students don’t need, and that we’d be better off if teachers could use the time spent taking the PARCCs to teach us more things and better ways to apply those, instead of just dropping this test on us.
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Suraj Pandya • Feb 20, 2015 at 2:41 pm
I feel like the PARCC is just a way to make us seem better as a global standard and make the U.S. closer to the number one spot. After some research, I found that the U.S. was number 17 on the list. The rankings where based on Test scores and graduation rates. Isn’t that what the PARCC tries to do? Doesn’t it try to increase test scores by having two test requiring students need to know less each time and give another way to graduate high school. This is the one down fall of the American school system, work hard only at the end of the journey. If students could have less time sitting and looking at books and more time out in the real world, learning about what they want to do, America could have one of the best school systems. I feel the PARCC exam is just another way to make America look better globally, but it doesn’t help the student’s succeed in school or life.
Shawn Rowan • Feb 20, 2015 at 2:40 pm
The PARCC exam is a new idea that may take some time to get used to. It strays from the traditional test booklet, answer booklet, and number 2 pencil in favor of a laptop. Despite taking a practice PARCC exam this past Thursday in English class, the layout of the test is still confusing. I’m glad I’m not one of the students who haven’t seen the PARCC test layout yet or I would have been very lost. Finding all the tools only took five minutes in a low-stress classroom setting. However, it make take longer and waste more test taking time if students start to panic in the relatively-high stress atmosphere of the testing room. Even though I haven’t seen the math portion of the PARCC exam yet, I expected the layout to be relatively the same. I think that trying out a new exam style is a good idea, as long as the students are well prepared for the new format and testing style the PARCC brings.
Sean Nicklas • Feb 20, 2015 at 2:18 pm
I agree with the author that the PARCC isn’t something students should worry about. This one test does not determine the whole rest of your future. Standardized tests are tests mostly to see how well teachers have been doing throughout the year. Of course they want to you to do good, but this test is mainly reflecting on how effective the teacher’s learning was towards their students. Now, there are SATS which in the article it stated that there are many other components that you could excel in; meaning you don’t need to do perfect on every standardized tests. I agree with the authors opinion on the PARCC test and that it shouldn’t be overstressed; just do your best.