Schools Feeling Strain From PARCC Testing

By Ankur Kayastha ‘15

As the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessments replace many state-mandated standardized tests, schools across the nation are struggling to administer the multi-day computer-based test.

At Sherwood, the Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) initially planned to go to block scheduling to accommodate seven PARCC tests. Based on staff feedback which voiced concern about dramatically changing the instructional day of every student, the school instead settled on a plan to hold PARCC testing in designated classrooms while instruction in the rest of the building continue normally.

Schools across MCPS struggled with the administration of PARCC last week. Problems were so prevalent that the Office of Shared Accountability issued a memorandum to school administrators. “We had a tremendous number of testing violations on Day 1, due to test administrators moving students forward to the next unit inappropriately,” wrote Suzanne Woertz, Supervisor in the Testing Unit.

“There are a lot of challenges,” said Assistant School Administrator Sapna Chaudhry, Sherwood’s Testing Coordinator. “The biggest challenge that we have to come across is not knowing what might happen on the day of testing … the uncertainty of connectivity issues, the whole aspect of proctoring assignments, moving classes to different locations and even scheduling make-ups. What must be understood is that this is new testing and there are bound to be changes as we move forward.”

Three emergency snow days have forced Sherwood to deviate from its planned testing days. The school had planned to administer PARCC tests to students in Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and English 10 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Without the snow days, testing would have ended on March 16.

Even without the loss of school days to snow emergencies, there already was a growing chorus of frustration about the number of tests that students have to take, particularly towards the end of the school year. Sophomores, specifically, are bearing the brunt of the testing season. All sophomores have to take the English PARCC and a number of them will take an Algebra 2 PARCC. Additionally, the two HSAs (Government and Biology) are still required for graduation for this school year. MCPS also requires students in MCPS core courses to take mid-quarter county formatives as well as county semester finals. Hundreds of sophomores also will be taking the AP NSL exam in May.

“PARCC impacts tenth grade the most in regards to testing … some sophomores have test after test after test … I’m not against PARCC but the way the testing was implemented, I don’t think there was a lot of forethought on how instruction would be impacted,” said English 10 teacher Lori Leonard.

PARCC has undoubtedly complicated many daily school processes, but the assessment itself is also full of complexities. It has two components that are required to be completed at different times during the school year: first is the Performance Based Assessment (PBA) during March, and the second is the End of Year (EOY) assessment given in April during two delayed-opening days.

Students taking PARCC assessments this year are not required to pass them, though they are required to complete them for diagnostic purposes. Students will be required to pass PARCC assessments beginning in the 2016-17 school year. For next year, additional PARCC tests of Geometry, English 9, and English 11 will be administered.

“At this point I cannot say what will happen for next year. I am hoping that next year MCPS will come to our rescue regarding PBA tests and give us some kind of built-in days like they have done in April [for the EOY sections],” said Chaudhry.

A number of questions remain about the future of PARCC next year and beyond. There has been a backlash against the federally created Common Core 2.0, which is the basis for PARCC. A number of states, such as Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania do not administer the PARCC and instead have returned to state-created standardized assessments. Other states including Michigan, North Carolina and Iowa are also strongly considering opting out of PARCC.

Politicians in Maryland expressed doubts about whether PARCC is worth the strain it is putting on schools. Governor Larry Hogan recently raised questions on the subject. “We want to make sure that we got it right. We might push the pause button on it,” said Hogan in a March 4 article for the Washington Post. Additionally, House Bill 452 of Maryland state legislation enacted a commission to review and ensure that “assessments administered to children have instructional value and a stated purpose.”

“I would testify against PARCC at the state level,” said science teacher Glenn Miller, who is the Head Building Representative at Sherwood for the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA). “Students should become informed and involved because this testing is putting a lot of pressure on students that may not even be necessary.”