PARCC

[Anonymous]

Are schools administering PARCC this year? Is it even happening?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are schools administering PARCC this year? Is it even happening?

Yes

[Anonymous]

PARCC is stupid.

[Anonymous]

Yes it is. It takes 2 weeks per grade at Deal. The SAT is being shortened to two hours. It’s absurd.

[Anonymous]

Yes. They will be wasting a ridiculous amount of time on it.

[Anonymous]

Yes. If parents wish, you may refuse to allow your child to be tested. I did every single year my kids were in elementary school. All you have to do is send a letter to your superintendent, principal and teacher. You'll need to state your reasons for refusal. My reasons were that my kids would gain more from reading a book than spending the 2-3 hours on the test. I sent them with a few books, instructed them to not disrupt the class in any way, and that was that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. If parents wish, you may refuse to allow your child to be tested. I did every single year my kids were in elementary school. All you have to do is send a letter to your superintendent, principal and teacher. You'll need to state your reasons for refusal. My reasons were that my kids would gain more from reading a book than spending the 2-3 hours on the test. I sent them with a few books, instructed them to not disrupt the class in any way, and that was that.

DC no longer allows opt out.

[Anonymous]

Nonsense. What are they going to do to you if you opt out? They may try to ding you for attendance, which won’t work if your child has a good attendance record. I send my kid to school on testing days, then come get her a few minutes before testing starts. I sign her out, take her somewhere for a couple hours, sign her back in and send her. back to class. Admins at the school ignore us and DCPS never follows up. I did this for my older child in 2018 and 2019 without difficulty. I’m going to repeat the exercise for the PARRC this year. Don’t expect DCPS to entertain your kid if you opt out and things work out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense. What are they going to do to you if you opt out? They may try to ding you for attendance, which won’t work if your child has a good attendance record. I send my kid to school on testing days, then come get her a few minutes before testing starts. I sign her out, take her somewhere for a couple hours, sign her back in and send her. back to class. Admins at the school ignore us and DCPS never follows up. I did this for my older child in 2018 and 2019 without difficulty. I’m going to repeat the exercise for the PARRC this year. Don’t expect DCPS to entertain your kid if you opt out and things work out.

Make sure you also find out when the make up days are!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense. What are they going to do to you if you opt out? They may try to ding you for attendance, which won’t work if your child has a good attendance record. I send my kid to school on testing days, then come get her a few minutes before testing starts. I sign her out, take her somewhere for a couple hours, sign her back in and send her. back to class. Admins at the school ignore us and DCPS never follows up. I did this for my older child in 2018 and 2019 without difficulty. I’m going to repeat the exercise for the PARRC this year. Don’t expect DCPS to entertain your kid if you opt out and things work out.

Why?

I mean, I can see you taking your child out of a school that focused on preparing kids for achievement tests, if you don't feel that's the best education for them. But, your child is getting all the test prep and just no opportunity to learn the skill of testing?

If this is just some protest gesture, you might rethink it.

[Anonymous]

i agree. why not just take the test. we can dispute the usefulness of this type of test in the aggregate but for an individual the test itself is not a tremendous time commitment.

[Anonymous]

I have my own reasons for objecting to PARCC testing, thanks, in what’s supposed to be a free country. I can’t stand corporate standardized testing for elementary school-age kids. Moreover, DC is the only jurisdiction in the country that has stuck with the pure PARCC, mainly because it’s a poorly constructed test designed to rake in the dough for Pearson Education (not even an American company). A decade back, 2 dozen states were onboard with the PARCC. I like to teach my kids to act on deeply-held beliefs. No interest in starting a movement. We are entitled to be left alone where for-profit testing of little kids is concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i agree. why not just take the test. we can dispute the usefulness of this type of test in the aggregate but for an individual the test itself is not a tremendous time commitment.

In Indiana several years ago, so many families opted out of PARCC, more than a quarter, that the state ditched the 10-hr PARCC for a 4-hr state crafted test. Very few DC public school parents want to look too closely at the test, or rock the boat. We do, quietly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have my own reasons for objecting to PARCC testing, thanks, in what’s supposed to be a free country. I can’t stand corporate standardized testing for elementary school-age kids. Moreover, DC is the only jurisdiction in the country that has stuck with the pure PARCC, mainly because it’s a poorly constructed test designed to rake in the dough for Pearson Education (not even an American company). A decade back, 2 dozen states were onboard with the PARCC. I like to teach my kids to act on deeply-held beliefs. No interest in starting a movement. We are entitled to be left alone where for-profit testing of little kids is concerned.

Thank you for this.

I’m pro-testing but not pro-bad or over testing. I’ve been discussing about opting out vs not and talking to my educator policy friends and teacher friends.

Post covid I’m 100% opting out.

[Anonymous]

I was hoping that Covid would end the obsession with standardized testing. It doesn’t show what was learned rather it shows how well you test. It makes many kids develop test anxiety.