Students voice differing opinions on PARCC
This week, senior Kayla Barry talked to Bergen County Academies (BCA) junior Liza Maer. They talked about BCA’s first ever Mental Health Awareness Day.
Mid-May marks the time of year when Pascack Valley High School students must take the PARCC, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. The online assessment tests students in mathematics, English language arts, and literacy to provide them with better information for their success in college, and to see if they are on track in their learning processes.
When the testing days arrived, several students at Pascack Valley voiced negative remarks about the PARCC.
Junior Conor Kimball took the PARCC, but said that it was a “waste of time,” since students already take other tests, such as the SAT and ACT.
“There is really no point in implementing the PARCC into standardized test taking,” Kimball said.
However, PARCC doesn’t pertain to the students, since it doesn’t affect our GPAs, and therefore PARCC doesn’t affect me.
— Emma Moskowitz
Other students mentioned that the only benefit of the online test was that Netflix, the global provider for streaming films and television series, was unblocked from the school laptops. After finishing the test, many students used the extra time to watch Netflix and pass the time.
Sophomore class president Emma Moskowitz said, “I feel that PARCC benefits Pascack Valley and others schools because they are trying to see where we rank.” Moskowitz continued, “However, PARCC doesn’t pertain to the students, since it doesn’t affect our GPAs, and therefore PARCC doesn’t affect me.”
Numerous students claim that they did not try during PARCC testing.
“I happened to try the first day of testing because I am an honors student who wanted to see how I was doing in my math section, but as time progressed, I started to click on random answers,” Moskowitz said.
Others left school early after testing, since they did not see the point in staying for the rest of the day, while some students did not show up to school at all, refusing to participate in the assessment.
Contrary to how some students felt, freshman Sofia Urbaniak expressed positive views about the PARCC test.
“I think PARCC prepares us for future tests because of its difficulty. The answers aren’t obvious and they make us think thoroughly. It challenges us to think on our own,” said Urbaniak. “The incoming freshmen should know that PARCC is important because it will prepare them for standardized tests. If they put their best efforts forward, it will truly benefit them.”
