Opponents Want to Use Today’s PARCC Pilot to Roll Back Standards and Accountability
By Mac LeBuhn and Charles Barone
We are proud to stand with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) today as they pilot the new and Common Core-aligned PARCC assessment. While many defenders of the status quo will use any glitches in today’s assessment as a way to roll back higher expectations for students and teachers, Democrats for Education Reform is standing up for the teachers and families who support PARCC.
- We all know that higher expectations and increased rigor are essential to preparing more of our students for success in college and a career. That’s why we’re so excited about the new PARCC assessments being tested today.
- The new PARCC assessments move us from outdated pencil-and-paper bubble tests to computer-based performance assessments. They will give parents, teachers and students more and better information about student learning than ever before.
- Since the PARCC assessment relies on innovative education technology, there is always a chance that some hiccups will occur when it is first used. While we expect that the tests will go smoothly, we also recognize that it is likely there will be some glitches.
- It is no secret that some critics do not want parents to have access to an honest picture of how their students are doing. This vocal and well-funded minority is planning to highlight any and every issue in today’s PARCC pilot as part of a plan to roll back better accountability and higher standards. The PARCC pilot is an important part of the movement to better prepare our students.
- Some will use this as an opportunity to criticize the hard work of the educators and researchers who created this test. They would rather roll back the Common Core and return to low-quality, low-rigor assessments that hold students to lower standards than many of our international competitors.
- Our students need higher standards and more rigorous instruction to be prepared to enter the 21st-century workforce—and today’s PARCC pilot is an essential step on the path to better schools.
We will not back down if the defenders of the status quo try to politicize issues in today’s PARCC pilot. Will you?
Mac LeBuhn is a policy analyst at Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). Before joining DFER, Mac was a fourth grade teacher at Rocketship Si Se Puede, a charter school in San Jose, CA. He became interested in education policy through internships at the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Colorado State Senator Mike Johnston.
Charles Barone has more than 25 years of experience in education service, research, policy, and advocacy. Prior to joining Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) full-time in January of 2009, Barone worked for five years as an independent consultant on education policy and advocacy. His clients, in addition to DFER, included the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, the Education Trust, The Education Sector, and the National Academy of Sciences. Read more here.