State School Board Says PARCC Exam Will Be Shorter Next Year
CHICAGO (CBS) -- State school officials announced Thursday that a controversial new standardized test would be streamlined to be shorter and easier to take next year.
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test has been given to 3rd through 10th graders in two separate sections, measuring different types of knowledge and skills required by the Common Core standards curriculum. The test was divided into two parts; one given in March, and another in April and May.
Illinois State Board of Education spokesman Matt Vanover said the PARCC governing board has streamlined the Illinois exam, after analyzing feedback from parents and others.
"As the governing board listened to that feedback, they decided that they would see if there's a way to consolidate those two testing windows into one, and reduce that total test time. So that's what they did," he said.
Vanover said, by shortened into fewer sections, PARCC should trim 90 minutes from the time needed to complete it.
Many principals and school superintendents across the state had raised questions about the usefulness of the test, given that it did not count toward student placement or promotion, teacher evaluations, or school ratings.
Podcast
The Chicago Public Schools initially planned to administer the exam to only 10 percent of its students, saying it was not ready for a full rollout, until it backed down because it would have risked losing more than $1 billion in state and federal funding if it was not administered to all 3rd through 10th grade students.
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis warned the new test would be "a hot mess," and said teachers were concerned the time needed to prepare for and administer the PARCC test would take away from the time students need to take advanced placement tests that can result in college credit.
Although the test was designed to be taken, in large part, on computers, of the 230,000 CPS students who took the test, about 90,000 of them had to use paper and pencil only.
Many parents wanted their children to sit out of the exam, but there was no process in place for parents to formally request their child opt out of the test. Instead, children themselves had to tell teachers if they didn't want to take the test, and even then, many schools forced kids to do nothing but sit and stare if they didn't take the PARCC exam alongside their classmates.
Earlier this week, the Illinois House passed a measure that would establish a formal process for parents to opt their children out of taking the test. Gov. Bruce Rauner has pledged to veto the measure, if it also is approved by the Senate, saying it's the wrong way to address concerns about standardized tests.
