Spend Time on the Right Test

This spring, about 81,000 Massachusetts students took the PARCC (Partnership for Assessing College and Career Readiness) exam for a test-drive. Some schools only took PARCC, some the usual MCAS tests, some both. As districts consider whether to administer PARCC or MCAS for the next school year, two particular concerns being raised are just how much time teachers spend teaching to standardized tests and how much time students spend taking them.

Time spent away from classroom instruction in favor of standardized testing and test preparation are valid concerns for parents and educators. Business leaders are also concerned about the focus on tests, as a poll conducted by MassINC Polling Group for MBAE found. But businesses are also concerned by the lack of critical thinking skills they find in the job candidate pool, critical thinking skills that are also neither tested nor measured by MCAS.

These issues could be addressed by an exam that has the potential to take less time away from classroom learning, test and measure what students are actually learning in the classroom, and become an extension of the teaching and learning process, not just a stringent and stressful addition to that process.

PARCC has the potential to be that assessment system. USC education policy professor Morgan Polikoff says critics use “amount of testing time associated with the new CCSS [Common Core State Standards] assessments as evidence of a test-obsessed education policy system that undermines teaching and learning.” PARCC is expected to occupy 8 to 10 hours of students’ time, which seems daunting, but considering a Massachusetts public school student’s school year is a minimum of 990 hours…

…PARCC testing will take up approximately 1% of their year.

A timed exam can give schools the ability to get back to classroom instruction faster. As it stands with MCAS, schools practically shut down, and students can have as much time as they need to complete the test. All day, if they need it. With PARCC, there is an extra time allotment, should students need it, but Department of Elementary and Secondary Education survey data from the first round of the field test show that nearly all students participating in the PARCC field test finished the ELA section and 93% finished math in the total time allowed.

Massachusetts needs PARCC, not just because it’s aligned with Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks that include Common Core State  Standards implemented in schools today, but because it’s practical. It can give teachers and students more time in the classroom teaching and learning, and can provide an opportunity for students to show how they can apply their education to real-life problems. It’s time well spent, making PARCC a test worth teaching to, and a test that carries students beyond the classroom.