Starting in March, elementary and high school students in Oak Park and River Forest will face a new standardized assessment exam. The Partnership for Assessment Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) will replace the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) at the elementary school level and the Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE) at the high school level.
The new test is “designed to help measure a student’s knowledge and understanding of the Common Core,” according to a D97 notice circulated to parents earlier this month. Students in grades 3 through 8 in both districts 90 (River Forest) and 97 will be evaluated twice in English Language Arts (ELA) and math. The first exam period is the Performance Based Component (PBA), administered between March 9 and March 25. The second period is the End-of-Year Component (EOY), administered between April 27 and May 22.
At the high school level, the PBA will be administered to “all students in a grade 9 English course as well as all students in an Algebra 1-2 course, regardless of grade,” according to a district FAQ, on March 3 and 4. The EOY will be administered during the week of April 27.
What many educators and administrators believe is the new test’s strengths may also be a source of great consternation for many of them, namely PARCC’s rigor.
“It (PARCC) takes a good amount of focus and concentration,” said Martha Ryan-Toye, District 90’s director of Student Service last year in an interview with Wednesday Journal.
The Common Core curriculum is based on higher academic standards uniformly applied throughout school districts nationwide and a greater degree of accountability imposed on educators and administrators for ensuring that those standards are met.
However, the curriculum, which since 2010 has been adopted by 45 states, has met widespread criticism for how it goes about implementing those uniform standards and whether or not it is appropriate for students to be assessed uniformly in the first place.
According to a joint statement of early childhood health and education professionals released in 2010, the draft standards made public in January of that year by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School officers were in conflict with empirical evidence in various fields on how children learn.
In particular, the signatories argued, so much emphasis on preparing very young students to take the test in later grades is detrimental to their development.
“We have no doubt that promoting language and mathematics is crucial to closing the achievement gap,” the statement read. “As written, however, the proposed standards raise” concerns, including that the test “will crowd out other important areas of learning.”
“Young children learn best in active, hands-on ways and in the context of meaningful real-life experiences. New research shows that didactic instruction of discrete reading and math skills has already pushed play-based learning out of many kindergartens,” according to the statement, which was signed by several dozen experts in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development and early childhood education.
But administrators at the local level believe that the test is at least better than its precedents—the ISAT and PSAE—at identifying and assisting early-on those students who may not be on track for college and career-readiness.
“Now with students at both the elementary and high school levels taking assessments from PARCC, there is alignment in what is being evaluated from year to year,” according to a D200 FAQ.
“Everything I’ve read confirms that it will be a better form of assessment over the long run,” said D97 board president Bob Spatz. “Unfortunately, the transition is a little rockier than desired.”
Spatz said that D97 has opted to administer the test with pencil and paper due to technological problems. Those problems were the result of issues with the TestNav software “provided and maintained by Pearson, which is the company that is responsible for administering the test [nationwide],” according to a statement released by the district earlier this month.
“While there will always be unknowns when an assessment like this rolls out for the first time, we believe the district is well prepared for PARCC,” said D200 communications director Karin Sullivan.
“We participated in a state pilot of the test last spring, so we had the opportunity to do a trial run and plan for how to give the assessment on a broader scale. As part of our overall technology plan, the district purchased 800 Chromebooks for this school year, which served the dual purpose of making us fully ready to give the test electronically. All students who will be taking the test will spend a full class period in a Chromebook bootcamp, so they can get comfortable using these computers to answer practice questions,” she said.
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com