When I was first prompted to write this article, I refused immediately. Not because I loathe the subject or the idea of writing it, but because I believed it needed to be objective. I found myself unable to acquiesce, as I am a very opinionated person. However, upon being corrected and told that I was supposed to voice my own views, I was unable to say yes fast enough.

The PARCC test has been a sore subject for me for a while, and my frustrations about it only grow as the days go on. It seems the more I learn about it, the more it simply seems like a bad idea. Even learning about it has proven to be a task, as neither the teachers I’ve prompted about it, nor the web articles I’ve examined seem to have enough information. This is not a jab at them, however, but more a criticism of the test itself. It seems the disorderly dripping of the grapevine has run a bit dry, and when the eventual droplet reaches us, only our confusion grows.

Details about the test come in unclear bits and pieces, leaving lots of “what if” and “how come” questions to be asked. The little information we have confirmed about the PARCC test is that they are being taken from March 10-12 and the beginning of May. Teachers have been provided with sample questions and tests to show and teach students with, but they’re less than satisfactory.

Lexis Horvath, a senior, said, “It’s a waste of time, to be honest. All of the standardized testing takes away from actual time we could be learning. I understand why the tests are being implemented, but they’re not productive, and the rigor of the tests fries students’ brains instead of giving them the space and time they need to do actual learning. I feel really lucky that I don’t have to take them, and I feel bad for all of the students that do.”

From the many people I asked, only a few knew when the tests were, and even fewer knew whom they affected. Gathered from about 20 different people, and what I’ve happened to hear in the past, the PARCC is being given to students who would have originally been starting on the NJASK.

The PARCC fact sheet states, “Assessment should not be a process to penalize educators and districts, but rather a tool for enhancing teaching and learning.”

While this all seems fine and dandy, they aren’t taking in the fact that with all of the prep time and test-taking time, all it’s enhancing is ways to waste time. While it is busy trying to gauge how well we learn and evaluate our performance, it takes away the time students could actually use to learn the things we’re being tested on.

For now, it seems only English and Mathematics are being evaluated. That means about three days of testing for Math, and two for English. Even without the added subjects such as Sciences, History, and Languages, that’s five new tests. But it gets better. It seems that it’s being thrown our way not once, but TWICE a year. Oh good. Because we didn’t already have our own everyday quizzes and tests. Not to mention SATs, ACTs, midterms, and finals. That adds up to about 20 to 22 big tests, depending on how many academic subjects you take. And that applies to a junior or senior taking the SATs or ACTs, I mean. The underclassmen have a bit of a break. They only have to worry about somewhere near twenty, without SATs and ACTs.

The PARCC being a graduation requirement is also based on your state’s decision. So, depending on how the good ol’ NJ feels about it, we may need this test to graduate. Some people aren’t good at test taking to begin with. Determining the future of a child by their test scores is a terrible idea; if the PARCC becomes a graduation requirement, that means a diploma is test-worthy material. Students’ futures were already on the balance board with the SAT and ACTs determining what college or university they get to go to, and now a standardized test determines whether or not students even graduate from high school. And all of this weight is being placed on just one test.

More recently, the term “opt out” has become popular. To “opt out” isn’t really to “opt out” but to refuse to take the test. The idea is, while other students may be taking the PARCC, if you have a form signed by yourself, your parents, and the principal, you can sit quietly for a couple of hours while other students suffer at the evil hands of the test. However, many are choosing to refuse to test, and why not? We’re high school students. Nobody wants to have extra testing. If we don’t absolutely have to take it, we probably won’t. Being a teenager is hard enough without mountains of standardized testing. So to the brave few who are still taking it, I salute you. **Insert Mockingjay call here**

The material for both CP and Honor students is also all the same on the test. So, this puts teachers in a rush, and they can’t teach as they normally would, or how students normally need. This puts both students and teachers in a tough situation, and everyone starts to feel unneeded but overwhelming stress.

In addition to this test being another unnecessary evaluation, it has a whole lot of problems. Putting aside the lack of information, the test itself isn’t concrete and complication-free. I was lucky enough to be one of the “guinea pig” classes last year, and I experienced the test hands-on. To say I was unimpressed is an understatement. Technology, while great and really useful, is not the most reliable. Logging in was a problem. Having a test completely on the computer sounds convenient and lovely, but it turned out to be a nightmare. The test had to be stopped multiple times to work out bugs, and I understand that it was the first run, but who’s to say it wont happen again? We can’t let a technical problem eat up our entire test taking time. Not only the technology, but also the format of the test caused so many complications.

The questions themselves were unrelated to anything I’d learned in my high school career. They were overly complicated and downright silly. Even the answering style was strange. I wasn’t sure if I was answering a test question or stating an evolutionary theory. Maybe that was just me, but other students I talked to found the test questions to be less that satisfactory as well.

I feel that the PARCC test is a good way to throw away a semblance of learning we could have had, even with the massive amount of testing we already work around. The organization of the test is horrible, and it seems like the rules and regulations are being made up as they go along. And considering the fact that so many students have already handed in the refusal form, I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Ask some students at PV about their opinions. They’ve got quite a voice. Not that the creators of the PARCC seem to care.

(Alex Pearson’s opinions are not necessarily those of The Smoke Signal or its staff.)