The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers (PARCC) is a 23-state consortium working together to develop
next-generation K-12 assessments in English and Mathematics. The 23 member states of PARCC collectively
educate about 25 million public K-12 students in the United States. This assessment is to align with the Common Core State
Standards that are being adopted by the majority of states in the U.S. with the
goal of building pathways to college and career readiness for all
students. As with every
change, especially in the education field, there are pros and cons. Below is an
overview of the pros and cons of the recently
formed PARCC.
Pros
o Students will know if they are on track to graduate
ready for college and careers
o
Includes items across different
levels of cognitive functioning
o Teachers will have regular results available to
guide learning and instruction
o Provides the
opportunity for participating states to come together and collectively move the
field forward and break new ground in assessment design
o
Parents
will have clear and timely information about the progress of their children
o
Has the ability to assess and measure higher-order skills such
as critical thinking, communications, and problem solving
o It
is a summative AND formative assessment
o Can
be used as online digital libraries for sharing of instructional resources,
professional development modules, student support
materials, identification of effective practices, etc.
o States will be able to have valid
results that are comparable across the member states consider that 44%
of students change schools at least once between kindergarten and the end of
third grade
o The nation’s education will be based
on college- and career-ready, internationally benchmarked Common Core State
Standards
o Better
prepare students going to college in English and Math considering one-third of
freshmen must take and pay for remedial courses in math and/or English at two-
and four-year colleges before they can even begin their chosen course of study
o Can
highlight where gaps may exist and how they can be addressed well before
students enter college or the workforce
Cons
o Fear of educators “teaching to the
test”
o Emphasis on informative texts in the
Language Arts section and not enough emphasis on creative writing and
literature
o Public perception of just another
“standardized test”
o Financing- The two coalitions designing the tests won grants from the
federal government to pay for the beginning of the process, but this funding
won’t cover ongoing expenses related to the tests, like paying people to score
answer sheets and the cost of new computers and expanded bandwidth
o Use of individual student growth in determinations of teacher
and principal effectiveness
o
Difficulty in a
standardized test to truly reveal students’ knowledge, skills, AND
understanding
o
Although there are included tests items across different levels of
cognitive functioning, there is no reference to the assessment of students receiving
Special Education services
o The more complex, non-multiple choice
questions will likely require a trained
evaluator to score them
o Difficulty in representing the full range of
knowledge, skills and understanding encompassed in test objectives
While this is not an exhaustive list of all the possible pros and cons
of PARCC, it provides a clear view of both sides of the story. It is evident
one of the dominating, positive features of PARCC is that it aims to encompass
a unitary assessment for all member states in order to provide comparable
results on student achievement and college and career readiness. With over 40
states adopting the Common Core State Standards, it is imperative that a
unitary, research-based assessment paradigm is in place to evaluate these
standards as related to students’ college and career readiness. However, there
is always a debate over the effectiveness and credibility of a “standardized
test” to truly measure all areas of students’ ability. Only time will tell if
PARCC will be an adequate and appropriate measure of these abilities after its
official, planned implementation in the 2014-2015 school year.
Resources
and more information:
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