You Need To Know About the Big Tests Your Kids Will Take Next Year

Starting next school year, students in many states, including Illinois, are going to have a new standardized achievement test: the PARCC test. PARCC stands for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. This test will be aligned to the Common Core standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Students in grades three to eleven will take these tests. There will also be resources for kindergarten, first and second grades.

The PARCC tests are designed to go far beyond traditional multiple choice testing. Most students will take the test online. Students will be asked to write essays and narratives, create charts and fill in graphic organizers. They will read traditional fiction and non-fiction, but also work with audio and video and other forms of media. PARCC is designed to be a more authentic and skill oriented test.

To make this happen, these tests will take more time. In addition, the PARCC test will be given twice. One test is “performance based” and the second one is focused on “end of the year” components. For third graders, each test will take about eight hours. For fourth and fifth graders, these tests will take about nine hours. Middle and high school tests will take more than nine hours. Schools will have two sets of two to four week windows when they can administer these tests.

As you can imagine, this is going to take some very creative scheduling in many schools. Schools where students have their own devices will have to make certain that their networks can support that much use. Schools with shared computers will have to create ways to move all their kids through their labs. Schools without computer resources can take the tests on paper. Of course, regular classes will be rescheduled to make room for the testing.

These tests are on track to be given for the first time next spring, during the 2014-2015 school year. You can read about more about PARCC at their website. Here is a handy FAQ page that answers many questions.

Of course, PARCC is being delivered through two major educational publishers. Here is an article that explores the costs of PARCC in both time and money. This writer calculates that, for the state of Maryland, PARCC will cost $33,761,216. Pearson and Educational Testing Service are the two companies that have been contracted to provide this test.

Given the challenges of a test like this, some educators are concerned that we have not addressed issues like the increased test length, availability and reliability of technology, ramifications for special needs students, training for teachers, and the impact of the costs. A superintendent in New Jersey wrote this op-ed piece asking that the PARCC test implementation be delayed.

There is also the question of reading on a screen. As recent research has shown, reading on a computer screen is very different from reading on paper. The PARCC tests provide students with multiple texts on the screen. This article from the Washington Post examines the effects of online reading and compares online to conventional reading.

Currently, in Illinois, the Prairie State Achievement Test is a graduation requirement. Students must take it. The PARCC test will replace the PSAE, but it is not yet known how student scores on the PARCC will be used. Educators are concerned about how students will approach the exam, especially after several hours of testing.

It is critically important that parents educate themselves about these new tests in order to be better prepared to help their students, and work with their schools when the tests roll out next spring.