Maryland Drops Out of PARCC Testing

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1. Bob Shepherd says:

   September 12, 2018 at 2:30 pm

   And PARCC spelled backward is . . . .

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   • JohnOgozalek says:

     September 13, 2018 at 4:44 am

     This made me laugh last night. And, I laughed again this morning. Thanks, Bob.

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     • Bob Shepherd says:

       September 13, 2018 at 12:44 pm

       Not mine, I’m sad to say. I believe it was Duane Swacker who first posted that.

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2. Ohio Algebra II Teacher says:

   September 12, 2018 at 2:37 pm

   Money well spent for Arne (at least insofar as his career is concerned).

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3. LisaM says:

   September 12, 2018 at 3:07 pm

   Don’t worry, we will still have PARCC. The new test vendor is likely to be New Meridian. New Meridian owns (or manages) PARCC. It will be computer adaptive, but it will still be PARCC. No relief from the testing madness or common chore curriculum in the once great state of MD. Hogan needs to go and his friends Finn and Smarick need to follow! Just another political stunt from our bully Governor who hates the teachers union and others who won’t do what he dictates. He has toured our schools twice with his BFF Betsy DeVos. Just another way for him to privatize education in the state.

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   • Laura H. Chapman says:

     September 12, 2018 at 6:51 pm

     LisaM You are certainly on the right track. Mercedes Schneider had this pegged, and this came up on a Google search.

     Term: 15
     There is money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to prop up the remains of PARCC.
     Grant to: New Meridian Corporation Date: October 2017
     Purpose: to expand the availability of high-quality assessments that track students’ progress toward college and career readiness using assessments and assessment content from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
     Amount: $1,500,000

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     • LisaM says:

       September 12, 2018 at 7:14 pm

       It will never go away here. In Montgomery County, they are owned by Pearson. It’s like a Pearson “incubator” there with the whole canned curriculum and testing going hand in hand. Hogan didn’t start us down this path…it was Martin O’Malley, but Hogan has just decided to keep every bad reform there is. We never get much press coverage because we are a very wealthy state with a strong teachers union (that does nothing to oppose any of this), higher teacher pay and benefits, plenty of funding from Fed/State/local tax base. The fact that DC is so close and so corrupt keeps any spotlight off of the reforms that we face daily. I’ve pulled my 2nd child from public education and have put him in private HS. I’m tired of fighting the system and graduation requirements in this state are PARCC. We have a Chris Christie mini me as our Governor and Ben Jealous…..well, we hear a lot of nothing coming out of the Jealous headquarters?

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4. Sara Attleson says:

   September 12, 2018 at 3:23 pm

   New Mexico is still PARCCing. Our acting Secretary of Education, Chris Ruszkowski, keeps reminding us how wonderful and fantastic PARCC is. The good news is have an opportunity to elect a new governor who supports real public education policies in November. Ruszkowski needs to be packing his bags instead of singing the praises of PARCC.

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   • dianeravitch says:

     September 12, 2018 at 4:04 pm

     Sara,

     Exactly right. The reign of error in NM will be over soon.

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   • chuck says:

     September 12, 2018 at 9:22 pm

     Ruszkowski is the “charter schools/manifest destiny” guy…http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2018/07/03/charter-schoolsa-new-form-of-colonialism

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5. Arthur Camins says:

   September 12, 2018 at 5:12 pm

   Maybe the abandonment of PARCC by so many states is a promising development, but only if they simultaneously back way off the idea of consequential testing as a driver of education improvement. I have no confidence that states will develop tests of better psychometric quality or construct validity than the large testing companies. The problem is that states are spending far too much on the tests that provide the least leverage for improvement and have negative consequences, while investing far too little support and resources to help teachers develop their talents in honing their skills in making sense of and responding to students daily learning. That, it turns out, is a highly complex task, but the most important one– if the goals in supporting learning rather than blaming and punishing.

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   • bethree5 says:

     September 12, 2018 at 6:59 pm

     Exactly. I would sit up & take notice only if a state scrapped PARCC & replaced it with nothing , w/a promised return to all teacher-designed assessment programs, & a bird-flip to DofEd.

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     • retiredbutmissthekids says:

       September 13, 2018 at 10:11 pm

       Absolutely,bethree5.

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   • Bob Shepherd says:

     September 12, 2018 at 10:00 pm

     Exactly.

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6. JohnOgozalek says:

   September 12, 2018 at 5:25 pm

   So, what’s the next PARCC-like idea coming down the pike? (Will they EVER learn?)

   I remember the suck-ups and consultants and hangers-on yakking about PARCC. They were “in the know” and we (real, live classroom teachers) were not.

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7. Roy Turrentine says:

   September 12, 2018 at 6:43 pm

   I was teaching geometry when we tried PARCC. Workshops were held across the state and young teachers were enlisted to help us old timers adapt to the wave of the future. It became obvious that the state department did not want veteran teachers when a fellow teacher with a masters in math teaching was turned down in favor of a cheerleader who had taught pre-algebra to lead the workshop.

   When we gave practice examples, it became obvious that the process of grading these questions would leave no idea about what the student did not know if he could not do it. There was no middle ground. Students who were about halfway to getting what they needed to answer a question got the same score as students who knew next to nothing.

   If there is any good in a test at all, it should differentiate between some kid who knows a bit and some other kid who is lost as he can be. What good is a test that won’t do that?

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   • bethree5 says:

     September 12, 2018 at 7:01 pm

     Just good enough to be cheaply scored by a computer.

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8. LeftCoastTeacher says:

   September 12, 2018 at 8:11 pm

   “‘Nearly everyone in Maryland — parents, teachers, students and the governor want these tests to end,’ Hogan said at a Board of Public Works meeting last month.”

   Someone listens to parents, teachers, and students. Someone listens to parents, teachers, and students? Someone listens to parents, teachers, and students!

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   • LisaM says:

     September 12, 2018 at 8:27 pm

     Yes….they are scrapping PARCC…but we are just getting PARCC with a different name. Hogan is a bully and a liar…..and it’s an election year! He ran 4 years ago stating that he would get rid of Pearson/PARCC and the common core curriculum. Well, it’s 4 yrs later and we have PARCC for graduation requirements. No one is listening to parents, teachers and students!

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     • LeftCoastTeacher says:

       September 12, 2018 at 8:30 pm

       I didn’t know that. Thank you for the info.

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9. RageAgainstTheTestocracy says:

   September 12, 2018 at 10:21 pm

   The institutional inertia of test-and-shame reform policies can be stopped dead at the local level. It just takes administrators and BOEs to stop operating out of fear. Start treating the tests as a four day inconvenience – useless and irrelevant. Four days. No more. Then let’s get back to basic arithmetic, the fundamentals of good writing, and reading for real reasons. back to nature studies, local history and geography, music, art, field days and field trips. Back to making the school experience interesting and meaningful. The quest for better test scores via test-prep, rallies, data walls, posted standards and learning objectives, endless searches for supporting evidence, close reading, and explaining every intuitive math operation has become white noise to kids. We must offer children more than that.

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   • Ponderosa says:

     September 13, 2018 at 1:16 am

     Amen!

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   • Bob Shepherd says:

     September 13, 2018 at 12:45 pm

     I second that Amen!

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10. TC says:

    September 13, 2018 at 11:25 am

    Castles made of sand..

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11. Beata says:

    September 13, 2018 at 11:28 am

    Ed. Reform has broken the public school system with the support of the elite politicians of both parties. Nothing is going on in the classrooms because most schools don’t have educators in charge and I am a certified teacher so I know. Teaching to a test and you don’t have textbooks, you don’t have heat or air conditioning. Most of your children don’t have internet at home so how do they do homework?
    Ed reformers are making money off of the backs of our children, so one test done it doesn’t matter. Democracy has been thrown under the bus. We are in a country that cant save anyone but Wall Street. and the rich white people. It is all so disgusting.
    The elections will make a difference everyone should vote.

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12. Bob Shepherd says:

    September 13, 2018 at 12:44 pm

    Prevent PARCC muggings!!!!

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13. retiredbutmissthekids says:

    September 13, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    On the first test day: JUST.WALK.OUT. NATIONWIDE. EVERYONE.
    & STAY OUT.

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