Some local educators are questioning how a new standardized test affects learning time
In March, many students took the first part of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test, better known as the PARCC test. The test goes along with the Common Core teaching standards that have been phased in over the last few years.
The test is given in two parts: The first when the school year is 75 percent complete, and the second when the school year is 90 percent complete. At Leyden District 212, testing will take roughly 15 hours in total, said Mickkel Storaasli, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Fifteen hours of testing is a lot of time away from the classroom, he said.
“That’s our biggest complaint,” Storaasli said. “It blew apart most of our freshman class schedule for the week we did PARCC. Teachers kind of had to be put on hold for one week.”
That doesn’t include preparation time including a sample test of 70 to 80 students, installing an app on student computers used to take the test and making sure the district had enough Wi-Fi bandwidth.
Storaasli’s second concern is that school districts won’t get the results of the test until a couple months into the next school year, at least this first time around. That’s too late to use results to plan classes and much less useful in looking at how to help individual students.
“It’s pretty useless for us now,” Storaasli said.
Storaasli testified on Feb. 25 in front of an Illinois House of Representatives education committee.
“The amount of time students take testing is not learning,” Storaasli told the committee. “The PARCC test that is designed to teach college and career readiness is significantly impacting students’ ability to learn those things.”
Over at Franklin Park District 84, third- to eighth-grade students will spend about eight to nine hours on the PARCC test. Superintendent David Katzin takes the middle ground on that many hours of testing.
“Kids are still practicing and showing proficiency with skills and knowledge we taught,” Katzin said. “That’s not to suggest I’m a tremendous advocate of the time we are spending [on the test] but I’m an optimist and I’m willing to look at it from the perspective that there has to be some residual benefit.”
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Katzin is more concerned about the computer labs at the schools not being available for instruction while the test takes place.
“We need to increase the technical infrastructure so we can accomplish this easier in the future,” Katzin said.
With the test being brand new, the results will be less useful.
“This [first PARCC test] becomes our benchmark,” Katzin said. “The second time around, it will have more meaning because we will have something to compare it to.”
Brian Knox, director of curriculum and instruction at Mannheim District 83, said the PARCC test is quite a bit different from previous standardized tests.
“It gets students to demonstrate a little bit deeper understanding of the [Common Core] standards,” Knox said.
Knox estimate the PARCC test will take about 10 hours in total for District 83 students. Asked about how much testing is appropriate, Knox said it is “always a delicate balance.”
“You need to balance valuable instructional time with getting good hard data to tell you how valuable the instruction is,” Knox said.