Michael Simeck, superintendent of Lake Forest District 115, is pleased with the Illinois State Board of Education’s recent decision to drop the PARCC test for high school students.
“It is welcome news,” Simeck said. “There has been a lot of speculation about what would be the fate of the PARCC. (The decision) provides clarity for us and now we can adjust to it.”
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test was only administered to high school juniors in Illinois in the spring of 2015 and 2016.
“PARCC had the potential to be an extremely good assessment but it takes years to develop that,” Simeck said. “It was a very long assessment. The results were late in coming to the district. Another struggle was paper versus electronic tests, which had disparities that were difficult to account for. It was a combination of pros and cons.”
Juniors at Lake Forest High School will now take the SAT. Perhaps the biggest advantage the SAT has over the PARCC is that the SAT is recognized as a college entrance exam.
“PARCC was recognized in a very limited number of places across the country,” Simeck said. “ACT and SAT are recognized brands, if you will. PARCC did not have that.”
In past years, the state paid for the ACT for juniors. Going forward, the state will also pay for the SAT for high school juniors. That’s good news for families who during the two years of the PARCC test had to pay to have their teens take the SAT or ACT so they could apply to college.
Another difficulty was that a limited number of students were eligible to participate in parts of the PARCC test.
“One of the tests would only be taken by students who had a certain level of math,” Simeck said. “The ability to compare one year to the next was really limited anyway.”
While Simeck is pleased with the switch in tests, he acknowledges the change will make it initially more difficult to compare tests from one year the next.
“Our baseline is moved a year farther out,” Simeck said. “It’s going to delay, there’s no question. There will be a lag time.”
baiduhai reporter Diane Rado contributed to this article
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