I was both reassured and somewhat disturbed to read Secretary of Education Hannah Skandera’s recent guest column on the PARCC test. On one hand, she soothingly explained what a boon this multi-million dollar corporately-produced assessment will be for our schools. On the other hand, so much of what she said was just plain wrong.
Unbelievably, Ms. Skandera makes the assertion that less time, not more, is now spent on testing. She must be using the new Common Core math (the PARCC test is a Common Core-based test), because the amount of instructional time lost due to state-mandated testing and practice testing is astronomical, far in excess of what was lost in the past.
By my reckoning, a high school student will miss at least 26 hours of class due to required state testing. This includes classes disrupted by practice tests, PARCC ELA (English language assessment), PARCC math, PARCC ELA EOY (end of year), PARCC math EOY, SBA science (PARCC does not feel it necessary to assess history or science), and the seemingly endless EOCs (state mandated end-of-course exams) in May. This testing regimen does not even include the PSAT and Advanced Placement tests, which are given during the school day and strongly encouraged by the state. Finally, it doesn’t come close to reflecting the disruption to school schedules and lesson plans.
I’m sorry, Secretary Skandera, but that is not less state testing. Many readers will remember the CTBS or Iowa Test of Basic Skills, each of which took about three hours. This is not the test of your childhood. For-profit corporate standardized testing has spread like a cancer. This is exactly why parents and students are up in arms. Kids didn’t walk out of class because they wanted to get out of 1.5 hours of instruction. They walked out because they know they will be denied over twenty-five hours of class time because of state-mandated tests.
PARCC was created by the corporate testing giant, Pearson, with headquarters in London, England. It grew out of a national mandate to base teacher evaluations on testing data as part of a waiver from the disastrous No Child Left Behind Act. PARCC was then selected by the New Mexico PED to meet requirements of the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” initiative. Though avid supporters of this massive test will point to its name, “Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers,” as the reason for its existence, it was actually created as a mechanism to extract data from tests taken by students to be used later to evaluate teachers and schools.
Furthermore, recent decisions by parents to opt their children from the tests have resulted in a series of very disturbing edicts by the Secretary and her department. It would appear that the NM PED has made the PARCC test more important than four years of classes taken in high school, grade point averages, and dual credits with universities. You see, if a student doesn’t take the PARCC, he or she cannot graduate, or at least that is what school districts are being told. There are alternative assessments, but they do not apply until the almighty test has been dutifully suffered. No test should be that important, especially a test which does not even have passing or cut scores at this point.
The PARCC is a hundred million dollar-plus boondoggle ferociously defended by the New Mexico Public Education Department even as other states abandon it. PARCC is inextricably entwined with Common Core, an educational initiative strongly opposed by an increasing number of state legislatures across the nation. Yet, according to Secretary Skandera, PARCC is a godsend to New Mexico public schools. Someone isn’t being forthright.