Anonymous
Post 04/01/2014 00:04     Subject: PARCC Test Crashed Yesterday
Anonymous wrote:
I am curious as to the reason accommodations are to be easily available for all kids taking the PARCC (not just kids with IEPs/504 plans). If this is the direction that the PARCC tests are to be administered once the testing phase is completed, then the State of Maryland and MCPS should follow a similar policy on all assessments given to children.

For children who have been identified with special needs in MCPS, there have been significant roadblocks for accessing accommodations if a child is passing state standards. According to MCPS, it is just enough for a child to pass - not achieve their best. It skews the data if a child has access to accommodations on the State assessments but not on classroom assessments. It is an obvious effort to drive up data points for assessments that measures overall school performance but ignores children who require accommodations daily to show their best abilities.


I don't know the rationale. I do know that the PARCC contains things they call "Accessibility Features Available to All students". Any kid who wants them can have them. They include things like: turn up the volume, blank paper, print magnifications, line reader (for reading text online -- it highlights the line you are reading, I think), pop up glossary, spell check ... basically the things that anybody living intoday's society should be able to expect when reading and writing.

Then there are other accommodations available to all children, but they need to ask for them ahead of time in order to get them turned on.
They are things like changing font color, text to speech in math, take the test in paper and pencil version.

Then there are the accommodations you only get if you have an IEP, one of which is extended time. However, all kids can have time and a half on all tests, if they need it.

http://parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Overview%20-%20Accessibility%20Features%20and%20Accommodations%20for%20Field%20Test%20March%202014.pdf

Anonymous
Post 03/31/2014 19:54     Subject: PARCC Test Crashed Yesterday
Anonymous wrote:He could have taken both. You needed to ask the school to test him on MSA. Guess you didn't. How is that anyone's fault but your own?


I contacted the school counselor then the principal. I was told that he could not take the MSA. There were not enough tests as well as proctors and rooms for the PARCC kids to also take the MSA's.
Anonymous
Post 03/31/2014 11:46     Subject: PARCC Test Crashed Yesterday
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It could just be that math is harder on PARCC then reading. My child who took math said that they were orignally given 50 minutes to complete 11 problems and the kids couldng finish so they have them 25 more minutes. So they seem to be testing the time. Also, seems weird that were only 11 problems. I assume they were multi part questions.


I'm a teacher. We were told on the PARCC test, there's a certain amount of time for each test, but if kids aren't done by then, ALL children (not just those with IEPs or who are English Language Learners) can get 50% more time to complete the test. This happens automatically.

In our school, the School Test Coordinator and tech coordinator have been working all week to be sure our computer lab is all set to go. Of course there will be glitches.

I think it is COMPLETELY REASONABLE for parents to inquire of the administration how much time kids will be "housed" in the cafeteria or media center for various reason, during testing. This has more to do with MSA than with PARRC. The MSA had so many different accommodations allowed that giving it was a huge logistical nightmare. So many teachers and proctors were needed that kids who weren't currently being tested had to sit for several hours in a group setting (aka "holding tank") and were given meaningless "Work packets". Then their classes went on with instruction while THEY had their tests... waste of time, but basically due to the administrative burdens of the different accommodations of the MSA (extended time, read aloud, etc.)

With a computer administered test, hopefully the kinks will be worked out, and then things like extended time and read aloud will be a lot easier to administer. (KIds can just have that accommodation turned on on the computer, and can use headphones) so there will hopefully be much less need to provide a million different administrations of the test.


I am curious as to the reason accommodations are to be easily available for all kids taking the PARCC (not just kids with IEPs/504 plans). If this is the direction that the PARCC tests are to be administered once the testing phase is completed, then the State of Maryland and MCPS should follow a similar policy on all assessments given to children.

For children who have been identified with special needs in MCPS, there have been significant roadblocks for accessing accommodations if a child is passing state standards. According to MCPS, it is just enough for a child to pass - not achieve their best. It skews the data if a child has access to accommodations on the State assessments but not on classroom assessments. It is an obvious effort to drive up data points for assessments that measures overall school performance but ignores children who require accommodations daily to show their best abilities.
Anonymous
Post 03/28/2014 21:29     Subject: PARCC Test Crashed Yesterday
I think if we required the legislators to take these tests before they were forced on the children (and wasting their time) then there would be far fewer. It is much too easy for legislators to say 'oh let's test' and 'benchmark' when they're not the ones in these nightmare, boring tests. Not to mention that the MSA was out of line with the curriculum this year in MoCo, so then you're taking a test on stuff you've not been taught because of the switch. As adults, we would say that is ridiculous but we make the kids do it and then wonder why they don't engage with school ...
Anonymous
Post 03/28/2014 16:02     Subject: PARCC Test Crashed Yesterday
Anonymous wrote:
2) I had no control over him taking the PARCC test or not. I would have preferred him to be in class rather than take a test that doesn't have any benefit for him, however, I don't see why he couldn't take both the MSA's and PARCC. The timings of those tests did not conflict.


I'm sorry your son's time was wasted. He certainly could have taken both tests, but most parents would have objected. Some kids had to take the PARCC this year, because it needed to be field tested. Kids field test tests lots of times. This isn't some new thing for PARCC. When the MSAs came out they also had field testing before they were implemented statewide. Some kids are chosen to do the field testing; your child's class was chosen. I guess state officials decided it wasn't fair to make kids take both the PARCC and the MSA. But yes, you are right, since your child didn't take the MSA, you and the teachers now don't have that all-important information that the MSA was supposed to provide. It does go to show you that the MSA didn't really provide useful, needed information.

Anonymous
Post 03/28/2014 15:57     Subject: PARCC Test Crashed Yesterday
Anonymous wrote:
BTW - when the system crashed on the two days his school attempted to administer the test, he had to sit in the computer lab with nothing to do for the entire planned testing time. It was about 2hours per day, so a total of 4 hours.


Well, I'd be pissed about that. Why on earth didn't the administrators let the kids read a book or something? There should be books in a school. Or paper, or something.

I started teaching in the 1990s. We didn't use computers much back then, we had to do things the old fashioned way. Nowadays when tech malfunctions, teachers have NO IDEA how to do anything.