Report of the Superintendent on PARCC

The presentation is here.
Boone: "the purpose of my presentation tonight is neither to defend nor comment on the PARCC"
simply giving an update

Partnership for Readiness for College and Careers
received $186 million as part of Race to the Top
designed to assess full range of the Common Core standards, including standards that are difficult to measure
data that informs instruction as well as student progress
Massachusetts is one of the governing states within PARCC (and our Commissioner of Education is the chair of their board)
state has agreed to PARCC provided they are "as good as, or better than, our current MCAS assessment"
mix of constructed-response, performance-based tasks, computer-enhanced items
third component to address speaking and listening
MCAS would require a significant change to align with state standards
state feels this will be as good as or better than MCAS
"state Board of Education has not taken a vote on if the state will switch to the PARCC assessment"
won't vote until 2015 ('though they're voting on field testing in November)
always items field tested for MCAS
MCAS itself was field tested prior to implementation
this spring's PARCC will be field tested: "That is, the test will be tested"
"there are a number of gaps and questions that are yet to be answered"
Perda: now 18 states as part of PARCC
normally field test items are embedded in the test
"in your Friday letter you received a list of the schools that the state will sample in the spring"
Performance Based assessment: March 24-April 11
End of Year: May 5- June 6
one million students nationwide, nearly two-thirds of schools (though about 15% of students) in Massachusetts
representative random sample of schools
"the PARCC test will not generate results for anyone"
no student will take entire PARCC test in either ELA or Math
some will take both Performance Based and End of Year
sessions of two hours each, some classes taking up to five of those
31 schools in the district--note that we have 44 schools--were selected to be part (Level 4 schools excluded by Superintendent)
We have the technology to do this, except for the need for headphones
update on WPS plans for full rollout of PARCC in 2014-15 to be at Accountability on October 22 (at 5:30, should you wish to attend)
"dates come very close to MCAS testing"
Chester has given superintendents the option of opting those students out of MCAS
admin considering that: leaning towards having schools participate in MCAS
Concerned about loss of instructional time
concerned about student information from MCAS
loss of school and district data; what about Level 3 schools?
going to require of district staff and schools staff
hope is that all will learn from it
Boone: state will be conducting independent reviews
while there was some flexibility for opting out particular schools and classrooms, state has been clear
that we cannot opt out the district
concerned about loss of information from MCAS if only field testing PARCC
also educator evaluation system loss of information