Student performance on PARCC raises questions

Already worn out from two hours of computing trigonometry problems and typing the answers on her chromebook for the PARCC test in May 2015, junior Ellie Kim, sophomore at the time, shut her laptop to receive more time on the test in the computer lab. With three questions remaining, Kim reopened her chromebook in the lab, only to notice the system had logged her out, and she was unable to complete the unanswered questions for the PARCC test.

“I was scared and frustrated,” said Kim. “Why would this happen to me?”

Kim was one of the many students enrolled in Algebra II or Level 3 English classes who took the PARCC, the Illinois-mandated Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

According to the Illinois Report Card, 46 percent of Glenbrook North students met or exceeded PARCC’s expectations in both math and English.

“The PARCC test is the state’s measurement of a school in terms of our college readiness,” said Ryan Bretag, associate principal of curriculum and instruction. “So for us, ultimately, if [students are] meeting or exceeding the standards, [those students] are deemed ready for college.”

The 46 percent of students who scored “college ready” on the PARCC test dramatically differs from data of other standardized tests GBN students have taken, such as the ACT, Bretag said. ACT English test scores over the past five years show that 90 percent of GBN students are prepared for college.

“There’s a radical difference between those too,” said Bretag. “You start to ask what’s going on? Our data is not aligning.”

The PARCC test also differs from GBN’s clearing house progression rate, the percentage of students who reach a second year at a university, which Bretag argues is the most important set of data. Over the last five years, 97 percent of GBN students attending college progressed to their sophomore year.

Because there is only one year of PARCC data, Bretag said he can only hypothesize why the results were low. He questions whether it was technology, the newness of the test or students’ motivation on the test that may have affected the scores.

Senior Meghan Aines, who took the English portion of the exam, said that instead of answering the short answer question on the test, she wrote about why taking the PARCC was a waste of valuable class time.

“[The test] took so much time out of my actual education and doesn’t go anywhere,”said Aines. “It hurt us more than it helped us.”

Brian Durham, the Deputy Director for Academic Affairs at the Illinois Community College Board, suggested the results were low because PARCC is testing the new Common Core State Standards, and students who took the test in 2015 may not be as familiar with the Standards.

“The Standards build [on each other] from kindergarten on,” said Durham. “So it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a little bit of a skills gap there because the students that are being tested on PARCC now were raised on the old standards.”

The PARCC results only amount to one data set, Bretag said, and it is more important to look at trend data from all standardized tests.

“We need some more time to understand where PARCC is actually drawing its analysis from, [which will] help us determine [if we need] to tweak or adjust [the curriculum],” said Bretag. “But at this point, I don’t see any need to make adjustments to what we’re doing when we look at our data as a whole.”