Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm... I've been teaching for almost 30 years and seen 3 different state tests implemented, and it's always the same story... lots of money to develop, years to field test create norms so results are meaningful, lots of training for schools to implement and understand scores, and tons of complaining... so more money, more time and still no one is happy..

MSPAP - Maryland Schools Performance Assessment Program
MSA - Maryland Schools Assessment
PARCC- Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers

and now... MCAP- Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program

At least earlier changes were in response to changes in legislation (NCLB required individual results reported to parents, MSPAP only reported school level results) or curriculum- the adoption of the Common Core State Standards. Now, the state of MD is spending millions again to develop a new test to measure the same standards as the current test and will require individual counties to spend millions to develop procedures and training to implement it.

I don't love PARCC, but wonder if this is all worth it when other changes may come from the Federal Level requiring further change before this test even gets off the ground...

+1 The big winners are the vendors and consultants.

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm... I've been teaching for almost 30 years and seen 3 different state tests implemented, and it's always the same story... lots of money to develop, years to field test create norms so results are meaningful, lots of training for schools to implement and understand scores, and tons of complaining... so more money, more time and still no one is happy..

MSPAP - Maryland Schools Performance Assessment Program
MSA - Maryland Schools Assessment
PARCC- Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers

and now... MCAP- Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program

At least earlier changes were in response to changes in legislation (NCLB required individual results reported to parents, MSPAP only reported school level results) or curriculum- the adoption of the Common Core State Standards. Now, the state of MD is spending millions again to develop a new test to measure the same standards as the current test and will require individual counties to spend millions to develop procedures and training to implement it.

I don't love PARCC, but wonder if this is all worth it when other changes may come from the Federal Level requiring further change before this test even gets off the ground...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PARCC tests were better than the previous state-written assessments. And now here we are, back to new and different state-written assessments.

You didn't read or understand the article. The state is not writing the test--they are looking for vendors to write the test or propose already existing tests.

Ah. So, we're replacing one vendor-written test with another vendor-written test.

Either way doesn't matter to me. PARCC needed to go as it was based on the belief that everyone should and could go to college, NCLB bullshit. If you read the documentation for PARCC, "career" ready is just another way of saying "college"--careers, not jobs. As the article states, I agree with educators that believe the new test should be adaptive and test grade-level material. It should be able to assess if a child is below, at, or above grade level and quickly get that information to teachers/schools so that the information is useful.

Anonymous wrote:Starting next year we’ll have a new test. They claim it’ll be shorter and require less time away from regular instruction. There was also a reference to the over-emphasis on test subjects, so maybe we’ll see more foreign language, art, history, etc? Fingers crossed!

https://www.google.com/amp/www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/k-12/bs-md-parcc-replacement-test-20180905-story,amp.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Here you go:

https://www.educationnext.org/the-politics-of-common-core-assessments-parcc-smarter-balanced/

https://parcc-assessment.org/content/uploads/2017/11/PARCCCCRDPolicyandPLDsFINAL.pdf

A student who is determined to be College- and Career-Ready through performance on the PARCC high school
assessments is one who has demonstrated the academic knowledge, skills, and practices in ELA/literacy or
mathematics necessary to enter directly into and succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing courses in those content
areas in programs leading to a credential or degree1
from two- and four-year public2
institutions of higher
education.

That's "everyone should graduate from high school with the skills to enter and succeed in a two-year or four-year post-high-school program", not "everyone should and could go to college". What's more, I think that everyone should graduate from high school with the skills to enter and succeed in a two-year or four-year post-high-school program. There's not much you can do in this economy with nothing but a high school degree. When students graduate from high school without the skills to enter and succeed not ready for a two-year community college program or an apprenticeship in a technical and vocational trade - we've failed them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That is college. There is no mention of vocational trade schools in PARCC's language. You don't need higher order thinking skills for vocational school.

I don't know about you, but I don't want a plumber or electrician or car mechanic who can't handle complex ideas.

I don't think it is the same thing. Plumbers historically didn't need to go to college and shouldn't have to. I think what they do is complex, but what PARCC is trying to measure higher order thinking skills for careers that need a college education. Apples and oranges.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PARCC tests were better than the previous state-written assessments. And now here we are, back to new and different state-written assessments.

BS, the only issue with the state assessments was they didn't provide national comparisons. PARCC was ill conceived and slapped together on all levels.

Did you have anything to do with the previous MSAs? They were terrible.

They were straightforward, and throwing the baby out with the bath water has achieved nothing.

What baby, what bathwater? The curriculum changed, so the tests had to change. Now the curriculum isn't changing (the state isn't un-adopting the Common Core State Standards), but the tests are changing anyway.

This is the comparison that was presented to parents when PARCC rolled out: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/burtonsvillees/news/Attachment%20A%20Key%20Facts.pdf
Look at the two math questions. There's nothing about the new curriculum that makes the MSA question irrelevant. And although we were told the PARCC question is clearly deeper and richer, it's not. The only thing it requires is more reading comprehension. If you actually look at the math involved, there's no grand concept, it's busy work. Any thought put into the solution is wasted, just get do the plugging and be done. The MSA question actually tests what the concept of remainder means in a real world scenario, maybe that's old hat, but it's not nothing.

Now of course this is making too much of a single comparison, but this is *the* sample question the PARCC people decide to release to sell their test. School systems across the country flashed this same question up to wow parents. No need for a postmortem, PARCC's dead, we were sold a bill of goods.

Wow. I think the PARCC question is deeper and richer and more likely to be what you see in the real world. You have to set up the question first, then solve it. That said, I'm not sure whether my 4th grader could figure it out. He could definitely figure out the MSA question though. He can do the computation, but he can have trouble figuring out what the computation is supposed to be. We are working on that.

Really, in the real world would you'd bring six empty vehicles on a field trip? And, what's wrong with asking a simple question of someone who's just learning a concept? Is there something about doing everything at once that's superior? Math is a tool for isolating concepts. The PARCC question is so hyper it's hard to tell there's not really much going on.

Even before the math, there's just too much going on--text, tables, pictures, a question that demands three responses. Why does the bus look like a van? Don't forth graders worry that one of the seats in the five passenger car is the driver? Hmm, the answers work out the same whether or not you eliminate a driver from the seat count. So the test writer thought this might be a point of confusion and they decided not to state it more clearly? Again, that just penalizes the student who notices the ambiguity and hunts for clarification or takes time to check that drivers don't make a difference.

Don't sell your son (or yourself short), this was just garbage designed to distract. Good riddance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That is college. There is no mention of vocational trade schools in PARCC's language. You don't need higher order thinking skills for vocational school.

I don't know about you, but I don't want a plumber or electrician or car mechanic who can't handle complex ideas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PARCC tests were better than the previous state-written assessments. And now here we are, back to new and different state-written assessments.

You didn't read or understand the article. The state is not writing the test--they are looking for vendors to write the test or propose already existing tests.

Ah. So, we're replacing one vendor-written test with another vendor-written test.

Either way doesn't matter to me. PARCC needed to go as it was based on the belief that everyone should and could go to college, NCLB bullshit. If you read the documentation for PARCC, "career" ready is just another way of saying "college"--careers, not jobs. As the article states, I agree with educators that believe the new test should be adaptive and test grade-level material. It should be able to assess if a child is below, at, or above grade level and quickly get that information to teachers/schools so that the information is useful.

Anonymous wrote:

That is college. There is no mention of vocational trade schools in PARCC's language. You don't need higher order thinking skills for vocational school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Here you go:

https://www.educationnext.org/the-politics-of-common-core-assessments-parcc-smarter-balanced/

https://parcc-assessment.org/content/uploads/2017/11/PARCCCCRDPolicyandPLDsFINAL.pdf

A student who is determined to be College- and Career-Ready through performance on the PARCC high school
assessments is one who has demonstrated the academic knowledge, skills, and practices in ELA/literacy or
mathematics necessary to enter directly into and succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing courses in those content
areas in programs leading to a credential or degree1
from two- and four-year public2
institutions of higher
education.

That's "everyone should graduate from high school with the skills to enter and succeed in a two-year or four-year post-high-school program", not "everyone should and could go to college". What's more, I think that everyone should graduate from high school with the skills to enter and succeed in a two-year or four-year post-high-school program. There's not much you can do in this economy with nothing but a high school degree. When students graduate from high school without the skills to enter and succeed not ready for a two-year community college program or an apprenticeship in a technical and vocational trade - we've failed them.