Our government is cracking down on educational achievement in order to compete with other world leading countries. America’s achievement gaps with countries such as China, Japan, are abysmal. Our nation’s leaders have been trying to find a way to intervene effectively for quite some time (ex. No Child Left Behind). The newest attempt is the implementation of the Common Core Standards. These will serve as a blanket of curriculum mapping across states in hopes to close achievement gaps amongst states, even the playing field, and give the government some control over what is taught in our nation’s schools, when, and how well. All new ideas, experiments, and plans need progress monitoring. For the Common Core Standards, the PARCC Assessment will serve as a gauge of student achievement and school success.
PARCC stands for Partnership for Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers. The states currently participating include:
Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New
Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. These new
K-12 assessments will be ready for states to administer during the 2014-15
school year. The hope is that PARCC will build a pathway to college and career
readiness by the end of high school. The test will mark students’ progress toward
this goal from grade 3 through 12. Teachers, school, and families will receive timely
information to inform instruction and provide student support. In addition
PARCC strives to create high-quality assessments measuring the full range of
the Common Core State Standards, support educators in the classroom, make
better use of technology in assessments, and advance accountability at all
levels.
A teacher friend I have voiced her personal
concerns with the new testing. She tells me that to her “PARCC is seriously
scary. For me, the NJ ASK was difficult for my students as far as the reading
passages go. These new assessments are upping the reading levels, but my 3rd
graders are not mature enough readers to comprehend the passage. Our school is
preparing for the test by have all the students K-6 take the MAP assessment
(another computer-based progress monitoring test) three times throughout the
school year. I don’t know how some schools will be able to keep up with having
enough computers for the kids, especially with all the budget cuts you hear
about. Overall, the unknown of where all of this will lead seems daunting.”
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BENEFITS
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DRAWBACKS
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Accountability of states, schools, districts, teachers,
and administrators
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Top
down policy. Is it all about money and big business or really about the kids?
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Tracks
progress
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One
size fits all? What about special education?
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Ensures
common core is being followed
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Are
the standards developmentally appropriate
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Allows
for students across country to learn at the same rate
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What
happens when a school doesn’t have the necessary technology to perform these
tests
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Teachers
will have regular results available to guide learning and instruction
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Expensive.
People will need to be paid people to score open ended, and well as the cost
of new computers and networking issues
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Parents
will have clear and timely information about the progress of their children.
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Empirically
based?
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States
will have valid results that are comparable across districts
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Educators
not included in development
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The
nation will have data based on college- and career-ready, internationally
benchmarked Common Core State Standards.
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Fear
of educators “teaching to the test”
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Tests
meant to inform curriculum planning
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Difficulty
in representing the full range of knowledge, skills and understanding
encompassed in test objectives
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Students
will know if they are on track to graduate and ready for college/careers
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Globally
competitive
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References:
Heather
Lizza, Third grade teacher
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