MCPS Avoids PARCC Requirement for Graduation

Betselot Wondimu ’15

On October 28, the Maryland State Board of Education (MSBE) accepted a plan that pushed back PARCC exams as a graduation requirement for high school students to the 2016-17 school year. The approval came after MCPS Board of Education President Philip Kauffman wrote a letter to MSBE Superintendent Lillian Lowery on October 7, asking that the state refrain from implementing its plan to use PARCC exams as a graduation requirement for at least two years. According to Lowery, Maryland plans to implement two cut-scores for algebra and English tests: a lower cut score that would fulfill graduation requirements and a higher cut score that would reveal college readiness.

The MCPS Board of Education expressed concern over the state’s original fast-paced plan to use PARCC exams as end-of-the-year tests that replace the algebra and English HSA exams, noting that testing anxiety (and therefore scores unreflective of the student body’s potential) would emerge after the hurried transition. In the letter announcing the push in the PARCC exams’ implementation, MSBE Vice President Mary Finan stated that the “two-year plan will allow our students and teachers to become more knowledgeable in the more rigorous standards during the transition.”