New Jersey 101.5 will be hosting a Town Hall meeting tomorrow (Thursday night) about the test that’s garnered both support and opposition from parents and teachers alike.

(Drumroll please!)

The PARCC or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers

test.

By now you already know the program will be featuring the head of the New Jersey Education Association – but not the biggest proponent of the test. DOE Commissioner David Hespe.

Apparently he feels the “point/counterpoint” format of the show isn’t to his liking – so he’s decided to bow out.

“Caca soutta!”

(or in plain English: he craps in his pants!)

A recent poll commissioned by the NJEA found that a majority of those polled feel the glut of standardized tests get in the way of real learning in the classroom; and that too much time is spent on teachers teaching students how to take a test.

Add to that the frustration of navigating through a myriad of instructions – plus software glitches that,

in some instances, mark correct answers incorrect – and what you wind up with is consternation on the part of parents who want their kids to learn, but not at the expense of taking what they may feel is a faulty test.

That and the added stress placed on the kids themselves.

Their worries are bolstered by reports that the company that will be administering the test, Parsons LLC, has been accused in the past of having participated in questionable business practices.

Moreover, districts that report a 95% student participation rate receive more federal dollars – giving credence to the suspicion that all the districts participating in the testing care about is the flow of money coming in.

But with so many other standardized tests that had been given over time – do these others really matter?

Are they really a yardstick for the amount of learning a student has acquired. Do they really prepare students for the demands they'll be facing when entering the workforce. And finally, could they (or should they) be used to evaluate a teacher’s effectiveness?

Last night I spoke with Inbar Shalev Robbins, one of the administrators of the Facebook group: Manalapan Englishtown Cares About Schools, who told me that it wasn’t unusual to have some form of standardized testing growing up in New York City what with Regents Tests being given as finals.

The problem comes in when there appears to be a bulk of tests given either throughout the school year (as PARCC will be given twice a year starting in grade 3 through grade 11) – or at the end of a schooling cycle.

In her opinion, all this particular test serves to do is have schools turn out drones instead of individuals who can think for themselves.

Offering a counterpoint to that argument recently was Dana Egreczky, Senior Vice President of Workforce Development of the NJ Chamber of Commerce – who’d spoken with Jim Gearhart to explain why PARCC Testing is important, and how it will benefit NJ students, by preparing them for college - and eventually the workplace.

http://youtu.be/vbve4aTVBsY

So, if we are to glean anything from Ms. Egreczky’s call, our students aren’t ready to enter the workforce without substantial remediation – and perhaps the best way to remedy that would be to administer this specific test starting at grade 3.

This is despite whatever concerns there may be about the company itself and the significance of the test in terms of dollars to the districts.

Should the PARCC test be the only standardized test given to NJ students?

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