Pursuit of knowledge shifts to PARCC

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers is the name of the new statewide standardized test, but maybe it should be changed to Predicting Approximate Results of Coursework Confusion.

We’re not sure what to make of the results of the new school achievement test. Instead of reflecting how well students and schools are doing as measured against a national standard, we see some districts taking it on paper, some on computer. We see some freshmen taking it, and some juniors. We see some schools where 8 percent of the students did not take it at all.

The results were pretty disheartening: Of 45 local school districts, only five saw at least half of their students meet the new standards. It used to be that anything less than 60 percent was considered failing.

Educators across the area, and in fact statewide, were criticizing the test, questioning the meaning of the results and offering reasons why their students did so poorly. There may be legitimate problems, but doesn’t all this sound an awful lot like a student explaining a poor grade to his parents?

Educators were unhappy with the Illinois Goal Assessment Program, so we got the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. The ISAT and high school-level Prairie State Achievement Exam fell out of favor and Common Core came to the fore. PARCC was the new golden ruler. Now after the first year of testing it isn’t?

Instead of decrying the test, maybe we should look at the results and use standardized tests just as we use any test. You examine students’ understanding of subjects with tests, then make adjustments so that they master the materials.

The end goal is the same for all students: readiness to be productive citizens who are able to participate in a democracy. Some will excel and become neurosurgeons, some will fail and become society’s dependent class, but we should have plenty of alerts along the way so parents, teachers and communities can make course corrections to give all those kids in the middle every chance to succeed.

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Pursuit of knowledge shifts to PARCC."