School Committee Hears PARCC Update

Sippican School students scored lower than expected on the new PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) online exam, Superintendent of Schools Doug White told the Marion School Committee on October 7, adding that the Massachusetts Teachers Association is lobbying for a three-year moratorium on all standardized testing.

The low scores on the PARCC exam – a newly employed testing system that is part of the Massachusetts Common Core objectives – seemed to surprise the School Committee members. White assured them that lower scores were not completely unanticipated, since the testing format was new to the students.

White said the developers of the PARCC testing system and schools using the product were aware of scoring inconsistencies and will continue to debug the program moving forward.

However, the future of this testing method in terms of the ability of all school districts to employ it was still in doubt, he said. Explaining the problem, White said some school districts simply didn’t have the funds to implement the program and had to use “paper” versus online systems to conduct the testing.

And there are concerns throughout school districts and teacher associations nationwide as to the validity of the Common Core program. White said some opposition seemed to originate from those who felt the program had been developed from the “top down” versus from educators. He assured the committee members that teachers, and specifically those from Massachusetts, had been essential in the development of the program. He said schools had been given 15 percent involvement in the shaping of programs to suit their districts to the Common Core requirements.

Still, White said there are petitions “floating around” in opposition to Common Core. He gave a brief history of how Common Core came into existence, noting that it did start with business leaders expressing concerns that graduates seemed to lack basic reading and writing skills. Not all states have embraced the Common Core philosophy, White shared, noting that Texas had opted-out completely.

As for Massachusetts, White told the committee that the Board of Education was continuing to evaluate PARCC and would be making a decision in the coming months as to whether it would continue to use PARCC or adopt another exam. He also said the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents was looking for improvements in testing programs that complimented local assessments, measured students growth and readiness for college and careers, and more funding overall.

White said parents would have the PARCC testing results sometime in December.

In other business, PTO Co-Chairman Dana Martin presented the committee with a fund-raising plan aimed at increasing the organization’s coffers. She explained that helping to pay for some large projects last year had depleted funds. The new fundraiser could generate as much as $10,000, Martin said. The hope was the fundraiser would stem the need to cut back on money given to the school for musical programs and equipment. The committee approved the plan.

Regarding budgets, White said he wanted to meet sooner rather than later with subcommittees so that needs could be determined.

“We need to know what the needs are at the local level,” said White. “Everything from salaries to materials, then build off of that.”

White also said that a parents’ night was planned for October 21 at the library to discuss special needs programs and that playgroups for toddlers had begun at Old Hammondtown School.

The next meeting of the Marion School Committee is scheduled for November 12 at 6:30 pm at the Marion Town House.

By Marilou Newell

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