To share their concerns about the structure and format of the new state-mandated PARCC tests Princeton Public Schools students will take next month, members of the teachers’s union, Princeton Regional Education Association (PREA) and the parent group Save Our Schools NJ (SOSNJ) will hold a “Take the PARCC” event on Monday, February 23, at 7 p.m. in the Princeton High School Performing Arts Center.

Participants should bring along their own wi-fi enabled laptops and tablets in order to check out the tests. The idea is to take a practice test and then ask questions and/or share concerns about it.

Third to 11th grade students will take the computerized assessments that have been developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College in Careers (PARCC) for states that have joined the Common Core curriculum. Common Core seeks to standardize student learning across the nation and the new tests will replace the former NJASK and HSPA standardized tests.

Parents in Princeton and in municipalities across the state have criticized the tests. Many want to know whether their children can “opt out.” To inform them, the district has formulated a “test refusal policy” and has developed a PARCC FAQ sheet, which can be viewed on the Princeton Public Schools page of the municipal website: www.princetonk12.org/Newsroom2/PARCC.

“Princeton parents vary in their level of concern. Some are very knowledgeable about the PARCC tests while others are just starting to learn about them,” said Princeton parent Julia Sass Rubin of SOSNJ. “Probably the greatest concern we hear from parents is the impact that high-stakes standardized testing is having on the classroom, by replacing valuable teaching time with test preparation and by narrowing the curriculum to the tested subjects.”

An associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Policy at Rutgers University, Ms. Rubin is a founding member of Save Our Schools NJ, along with Mayor Liz Lampert and the district’s Board of Education President Andrea Spalla. She has a seventh grader at John Witherspoon Middle School.

“We formed Save Our Schools NJ because we saw that public schools were under attack and wanted to inform and organize parents across New Jersey to stand up for our children and our public schools,” she said.

Since it was formed four and a half years ago, SOSNJ has grown to almost 25,000 members; it reaches out to between 30,000 to 150,000 people on Facebook and Twitter each week.

“My main concern with PARCC and other high-stakes standardized tests is the very destructive impact they have on public education, particularly in low-income communities, where the tests are used to forcibly close public schools and to fire teachers,” said Ms. Rubin. “We are very fortunate to have an extraordinary public school system in Princeton that we can’t take for granted. That excellence is a reflection of our administration, the quality of our teachers and the engagement of our families. It takes sustained effort and attention to maintain and defend, and that is something all of us must do.”

While SOSNJ recognizes that assessing a student’s skills and knowledge level is part of a high quality education, it opposes “the reliance on test scores to make critical educational decisions such as closing schools, firing or rewarding teachers, withholding a high-school diploma, or keeping a child from advancing to the next grade,” said Ms. Rubin (see Mailbox). It wants a reduction in the number of standardized tests children must take as well as elimination of the punitive stakes associated with those tests.

According to PREA President Joanne Ryan, teachers also have concerns, specifically: the impact the results of the tests will have on students, teachers, and districts; the number of hours spent preparing and practicing for the tests, taking away from classroom instruction; and the amount of money districts have spent, and are spending, to prepare for the PARCC testing.

“In mid-January PREA began working with Save Our Schools NJ as a community service to provide information to parents and community members,” said Ms. Ryan.

FAQs

According to the FAQ sheet, the district has been preparing students to take the computerized tests by exposing them to the online environment and sample tests prior to the test date and purchasing additional devices such as Chromebooks.

The FAQ sheet compares the PARCC assessment with other PPS ongoing formative assessments necessary to guide teachers and parents about students’ progress. It explains that the results of the tests will be used to identify students who need additional support such as intervention through the Accelerated Intervention Services (AIS) program, accommodations for Special Education and ESL students, and extended time for students with IEPs and 504s.

This first year, however, the assessment results are not expected to be received in time to be used in this way.

The information sheet states that schools are held accountable through the federal No Child Left Behind law to maintain at least 95 percent participation in state-mandated tests and that test results will impact School Performance Report and Progress Targets. Teachers are held accountable through the TEACHNJ law that connects teacher evaluation to student growth, as measured in part by the state assessment data.

It is thought that the PARCC testing may become a graduation requirement for high school in future years.

For more information on the PARCC, visit: www.parcconline.org and/or www.state.nj.us/education/sca/parcc. For more information on the Save Our Schools NJ position, visit: www.saveourschoolsnj.org/high-stakes-testing/.

Space is limited and registration is required for “Take the PARCC.” Pre-registration is available at: http://bit.ly/1AlbiUz. For more information, email: info@saveourschoolsnj.org, or visit www.saveourschoolsnj.org.