Until a time in which Common Core standards have been instituted in Downers Grove for the majority of a student’s’ academic career, the PARCC test is not a fair test.
Common Core standards were only truly instituted last year, yet the PARCC test is meant to evaluate the teaching of those Common Core standards to freshman.
As a senior who has never gone through Common Core curriculum, but understands that it is supposed to be slightly more advanced, I decided to gauge what the freshman students are up against.
I downloaded the PARCC math and reading tests for ninth graders and began. Freshman level English should have been a breeze for a senior in AP English.
Then, I read the passage directions — I was to read correspondence between Robert Oppenheimer, Los Alamos scientists, and President Truman in regard to the atomic bomb.
It was clear that the PARCC had decided to reach for the top shelf of reading topics — writings by persons holding multiple science PhDs. More importantly, the test covered a topic that most students would not have had any broad knowledge about — the moral issues associated with the atomic bomb.
Having gone through that terrible shock, I instead opted to begin the math test. Oh boy, what a ride that was.
The ninth grade math test is focused on algebra concepts. Certainly, for a calculus student, it was going to be easy. On the first, non-calculator, portion, I felt pretty good. “Cost to manufacture sunglasses” — no problem. Graphing inequalities — easy. Determining the distribution of cross country runners’ times over the course of arbitrarily dispersed intervals — that’s a problem.
I completed the 45 questions and subquestions of the math section feeling as though I had never passed an algebra course (I have).
After a short bout of tears and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Half-Baked ice cream, I was ready to painstakingly review my results.
The results were less than impressive — a whopping 57 percent average. With shot confidence, I thought about my current math class — AP Calculus AB — and the good grades I’ve earned in math prior to this. Could it be that this test is much more challenging than AP courses, and, consequently, more challenging than the Common Core standards are designed to be?
Anyway, I still had the reading test to boost my confidence. I dove in with vigor and ran through the test in about thirty minutes. The results were fine (91% accuracy), leaving out the essay portion because of an inability to unbiasedly grade it.
This freshman level reading test somehow resulted in a score lower than my honors/AP English course average over four years. Yet, it is expected to test a freshman’s mastery of Common Core standards. For some reason, I doubt the Common Core standards have elevated freshman to a senior AP level yet.
At the end of the day, I took this test and was able to find peace by remembering that the test had no impact on my future. Unfortunately, for the freshman who take it, they cannot be so certain about that.
I’ve concluded, then, that the PARCC test is not even a fair test of my AP education, let alone Common Core.
A better, more applicable use of time would be actual classroom learning and focus on content rather than teaching to a test that — at this point in time — serves no purpose aside from building anxiety and can’t accurately show Common Core results after only a couple of years.
Let’s take a break from PARCC testing for a few years. Let students have time to be wholly familiar with what is expected of them on the test, and then test their years of Common Core studies.
Michael Rivera | Opinion Editor
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