School officials are dismayed by the release of 2015 PARCC results just four months before students will take the standardized test again in April, saying teachers have no time to interpret the data to help prepare students.
“The delay in getting information — on how to administer the test, training on the test — it was a lack of communication about it and that doesn’t help school districts,” said Oliver Grenham, chief education officer for Adams County School District 50. “Once the results came back, well, it’s a post-mortem piece of data from an instructional point of view.”
On Dec. 11, the Colorado Department of Education released the initial results of the Partnership for Academic Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) assessments in English and math, administered to students in third through 11 grades. But because of large opt-out rates across the state, many educators say the data has little reliability.
PARCC is aligned with the state’s more rigorous academic standards. But school officials point out its data cannot be compared with Colorado’s previous standardized tests, the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program (TCAP), which was aligned to different standards and had no opt-out options. With the option to opt out of the PARCC assessments, the resulting fluctuating participation affected results in many districts.
Dana Smith, the interim chief communications officer for the Colorado Department of Education, said PARCC results should be seen as a baseline — a new bar from which to rise — rather than a comparison to the TCAP.
“It’s a new test,” Smith said. “It’s a new benchmark for us to measure growth, and we expect as students and teachers get more used to these tests, we will see scores rise over time.”
But because of the delay in receiving results, teachers don’t have time to use the data to help prepare students, Grenham and Jeffco Superintendent Dan McMinimee said.
“Anytime you don’t get assessment results back in a timely fashion you lose the opportunity for teachers to inform instruction for students, and for students to know their strengths and opportunities for growth,” McMinimee said. “We need to go down a path of a balanced assessment system, but also give teachers and students information that is usable and knowledgeable.”
Lakewood High School counselor Todd Freisen agreed.
“For planning purposes it makes it challenging to make the results work…,” he said. “With such little time before the next tests, to add this into instruction would be rushed and not as much quality will be attended to.”
District 50 and Jeffco also use other local assessments to help assess students’ progress throughout the year. This method, used in conjunction with the standardized tests, is meant to give a complete picture of a student’s growth and learning throughout the year.
“It’s good to have the annual check-up to make sure you’re on track with your academic expectations,” said Carol Eaton, Jeffco’s executive director of instructional data services. “But it’s not sufficient. You have diagnostics, which are our local assessments, along the way. We’re working all year to make sure students make these metrics and are prepared to be successful.”
Smith said the scoring delays with PARCC should be fixed this year, with results coming out by mid- to late summer.
With a shorter time frame between test taking and results, Grenham said students and teachers can use the data to personalize and align instructional time with students’ needs.
“Kids get very excited about data, and they really want to know how they’re progressing in school – it’s very relevant for them,” Grenham said. “We think PARCC can be administered at any point of the school year and at the level the student is at, which will be a motivator for them…We need to help students opt-in, not opt-out of testing.”
