15
In a recent sit-down interview at ISBE, Deputy
Superintendent and Chief Education Officer Susie
Morrison and Director of Assessment Dr. Mary
O’Brian answered questions and shared their
thoughts on the recent No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
waiver and the pending implementation of the
PARCCassessment.
Here in Q & A form are
those thoughts and insights
from ISBE’s perspective:
Q: What is the reason
for implementing PARCC,
andwhat is thegoal?
Morrison:
PARCC
addresses the concerns we have been hearing from
school districts for a long time. It is aligned to
standards, moves away from a single point-in-time
high stakes test to one that is useful for instruction
and measuring student growth. PARCC bridges
elementary and high school performance and it
allows results to be returned quickly for decision
making at the school level.
Nationally, the trend is moving toward higher,
internationally benchmarked learning standards and
wewould be doing our students a disservice if we did
not move in the direction of college and career
readiness. (PARCC stands for Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for CollegeandCareers).
O’Brian:
This is a step in the next generation of
assessments. It is better standards-aligned for grades
3-11 as opposed to having ISAT for grades 3-8 that
did not align with the PSAE for high school students.
PARCC will provide much richer classroom data for
superintendents and principals to identify strengths
as well as areas to beef up instruction. We’ve never
had that ability to pinpoint those areas in a specific
manner.
Morrison:
The assessment also will provide
better student performance data to inform making
decisions to support students and provide
intervention as needed.
Q: What are your thoughts regarding the test
overload issue, especially for high school juniors
that may have to take PARCC, ACT, the Advance
Placement (AP) and final exams all in the fourth
quarter?
Morrison:
Testing comprises a small amount of
time in comparison to the amount of time available for
instruction. Assessment is also a critical part of the
instructional process. It is important to consider the
purpose of the assessment and how it is used. ACT
is currently used for college entrance. PARCC is
used to determine whether remedial coursework is
needed and is given at the end of course, similar to a
final exam. That’s why PARCC is a vast
improvement over a single point-in-
time, multiple-choice test used for high
stakes
accountability.
PARCC
assesses higher order thinking skills
and the application of knowledge and
information that will be useful to
teachers, parents and students as they
approach college and career decisions
Q: Why should students care about
PARCC when it is not accepted by colleges and
universities for admissionpurposes?
Morrison:
PARCC was not designed as an
assessment for college admission and theACT is not
going to go away. We have spent time meeting with
people in higher education and they think PARCCwill
be an important assessment for the purpose of
college placement. That is important because people
involved in higher education tell us that students who
have to take remedial courses typically don’t end up
getting degrees. If a student scores well enough on
the PARCC they won’t have to take those remedial
courses that cost money and take time but don’t yield
college credits. That is important.
PARCC also is designed in a way that schools, if
they wish, could make the assessment part of the
final exam.
Q: If the ACT is not going away, and it iswhat
colleges use for admission purposes, what role
will the ACT play in the evaluation of school
districtsandwill ISBEcontinue to fund it?
Morrison:
We have included both PARCC and
ACT in our FY15 budget request. The intent is to be
able to provide a transition, by still providing the test
on an optional basis for all 11
th
grade students. We
still intend to use the ACT as part of the overall
evaluation under our NCLB waiver. PARCC provides
alignment withK-12 that ACT does not.
Q: What about the technology issues, and
how will you compare results from the online
version to results from thepaper/pencil version?
(Continuedonpage16)
ISBE leadersoffer thoughtsonPARCC issues
