By Michael Hill
Correspondent
Education Commissioner David Hespe says statewide percentages for PARCC math results are the most troublesome. More than half of the students tested failed to meet expectations or grade level. “For example, one third of our students – not yet on track – in geometry and that really causes some concern because that is unusual,” said Hespe.
Hespe says overall New Jersey compares well to some of the other dozen states and District of Columbia in testing results for readiness for the next grade or college. Take math for example, 55 percent of New Jersey 3rd graders failed to meet expectations. 45 percent meet grade level. That compares to 62 percent falling short in Illinois, 38 percent up to par or better and 49 percent falling short in Massachusetts and 51 percent meeting or exceeding.
Wendell Steinhauer, President New Jersey Education Association, said “The over testing is out of control.” The New Jersey Education Association says if the purpose of going to school is learning then PARCC is disruptive. Steinhauer continued “if you want to improve learning, if you want to give teachers back the classroom, lets stop the over testing, lets stop the test preparation, and lets just go back to the way we used to do it where we gave a test for a particular week, we didn’t prep for it, just give it. It gives us some results to help improve instruction and move on.”
Steinhauer and Hespe agree the PARCC results should help give teachers the classroom tools they need to improve instruction and learning. But, Hespe says for all the criticism about PARCC, it appears it does accurately measure student readiness. “And the National Assessment of Educational Progress test basically validates what we’re seeing in the PARCC score distributions in that this is what NAEP would predict in terms of our scores in New Jersey. American Diplomacy Project and PARCC got it right,” said Hespe.
Kean University’s Dr. Soundaram Ramaswami says the PARCC results takeaway is how much better all students – but especially the approximate 25 percent who fall in the category of “approaching expectations” – could learn and perform if teachers were better equipped to teach the new standards. “These are the cusp kids, either they fall down or they go up, provide them intervention and can become proficient, so we have a great opportunity to make these students proficient that’s what the schools should be looking at.”
State plans to release individual school and district PARCC results this fall. The consensus right now is whatever those results show, more learning needs to take place in the classroom if students hope to have any shot a better or brighter future.