Schools have PARCC testing ‘down to a science’
Annual assessments run smoothly with fewer complaints, not as many students opting out
It was 9 a.m., and the one-man command center in the central office at El Camino Real Academy was up and running smoothly. Evan Gourd, the operation’s troubleshooter, was monitoring online activity from his laptop.
The school had been planning the massive effort since January. It involved 450 kids, more than 30 educators, hundreds of Chromebooks and, no doubt, gallons of coffee.
Principal Jakob Lain, whose walkietalkie occasionally erupted with static-filled chatter, walked the halls, offering support to teachers and students he hoped would neither burn out nor run out.
It was PARCC test time at El Camino Real — and at schools throughout the Santa Fe district.
“This year, it’s been calm,” Lain said Tuesday morning as he gazed down an empty hallway. Closed doors were adorned with signs saying, “PARCC testing — please do not disturb.” “We’re ready,” Lain said. Veronica García, Santa Fe Public Schools superintendent, said she visited a number of sites this week to see
how they were progressing with the annual online math and English-language exams that were administered statewide over the last couple of weeks for students in grades 3-11.
“Our people are doing a good job,” García said. “They have it down to a science.”
Schools across New Mexico have had four years to adapt to the exams, developed by a shrinking consortium of states called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC. The exams test students’ skills based on the widely adopted — and fiercely debated — Common Core State Standards.
Previously, New Mexico used its own set of statewide annual exams, called the Standards Based Assessments, which tested students’ proficiency in a variety of subject areas. The state continues to administer a science Standards Based Assessment at some grade levels.
The transition to PARCC wasn’t easy.
In the spring of 2015, ahead of the first wave of PARCC exams, many students and parents in New Mexico protested. Highschoolers in Santa Fe walked out of classes — some even knocked over fences to flee campus — during the testing period.
Long before testing began, opponents argued that students would lose valuable instruction time as teachers focused on preparing them for the computerbased exams and during the weekslong testing periods.
Parents of more than 200 students in Santa Fe, out of 8,000 scheduled to take the tests in 2015, submitted requests for their children to opt out of the exams.
The number of kids excused from the tests at some schools was so high that the schools were penalized by the state, losing a full letter grade in their annual evaluations.
Teachers also blasted the way the exams were used, saying students’ scores weighed too heavily in the state’s assessments of educators and schools.
And many students complained about technical problems, saying they couldn’t log on to the exam site or that internet access at their school failed as they were trying to answer questions.
This year, with New Mexico one of just seven states that still use PARCC, compared to 27 in 2010, according to the nonprofit Education First, the anti-PARCC opposition among teachers, parents and students has quieted down — even as politicians campaigning for public office vow to end use of the exams.
Just 35 students in Santa Fe Public Schools opted out of the test this spring, said district spokesman Jeff Gephart.
Four of those kids attend El Camino Real, Lain said, and three are from the same family.
Schools in the district had some leeway in how they chose to schedule the exams, working with teachers and students to determine the best ways to lessen the pain.
At El Camino Real, for example, third- and fourth-grade teachers decided to shorten the testing window to one week, scheduling 60 to 90 minutes of math testing in the morning and similar sessions of English-language testing in the afternoon. They thought this might help their students, still new to the exam, adapt more quickly to the process and perhaps perform better.
Meanwhile, students in grades 5-8 took the tests over the course of two weeks — an English session every morning for one week and daily math testing the following week.
By midmorning, the PARCC warning signs were removed from the classroom doors at El Camino Real.
Students finished the tests by 10 a.m. or so, got some playtime outside and then resumed classes, Lain said, with lunchtime and afternoon coursework uninterrupted.
Milagro Middle School took a different tack, completing the exams in a short stretch of days in which students had no other classwork.
“We had a morning testing session, gave the students a slightly longer lunch so that they could run around and get the jitters out,” Principal Marc Du Charme said, “and then we put them back in and tested them again the same day.” After the second round of tests, he said, students were free to run around until the end of the school day. “We pulled it off in three and a half days.”
That approach, Du Charme said, ensured students could catch up on any lost instructional time the following week.
Wood Gormley Elementary School Principal Laura Jeffrey said her staff worked together to “significantly improve” the PARCC process this year. Like the staff at Milagro, Wood Gormley teachers decided to complete the tests in one week.
Students in grades K-2 were not tested and continued with their regular schedules.
Du Charme and Jeffrey said they faced no major technical problems during the testing process.
On the first day, Lain said, all of the students in one classroom at his school lost online access to an exam.
But district troubleshooters arrived quickly to help Gourd get them back on track.
At the Academy for Technology and the Classics, a charter middle school and high school on the city’s south side, students had to undergo two-hour testing sessions because PARCC officials chose the site to pilot possible new questions for future exams, Principal Susan Lumley said. Those questions will not count toward students’ overall scores.
With the longer testing sessions, Lumley said, “it did cut into academics a little bit.”
But she downplayed the impact of the testing.
“We have been doing this now for multiple years,” Lumley said, “and everyone is used to it. It’s what we do. Anytime something new comes up, I think it generates fear because it’s new. It’s not new anymore.”
All three Democratic candidates for governor — entrepreneur Jeff Apodaca, state Sen. Joseph Cervantes and U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham — have said that if elected, they would get rid of PARCC.
The sole Republican gubernatorial candidate, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, said he wouldn’t necessarily throw out the exams but would allow district superintendents to make decisions about standards-based assessments.
Lain is pragmatic when considering the effect of future testing changes.
There always has been testing in schools, he said, and there always will be.
“Four years ago, when PARCC started, moving the school and students into digital test-taking was a challenge,” Lain said, “and no matter what test you choose in the future, it’s likely to be digital.”
But, he said, “We adjusted. And if they change it, we’ll adjust again.”
Contact Robert Nott at 505-9863021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.
Just 35 students in Santa Fe Public Schools opted out of the test this spring, said district spokesman Jeff Gephart. More than 200 opted out of taking the exam in 2015.