PARCC update at the Board of Ed

posting as we go
Commissioner: session last night on graduation, high school assessment
today is on how the field test is going

More field testing to go, another year of tryouts of PARCC
Bickerton: for first piece (PBA) 41,000 students tested online; 17,000 tested pencil and paper; 86 students opted out; 600+ absent "for other reasons"
majority of students expressed a preference for online tests ( 74% in ELA; 56% in Math); majority said most questions asked about things they'd learned this year (87% ELA; 70% math)
28% said ELA more difficult than schoolwork; 61% said math more difficult than schoolwork
83% in math and 94% in ELA said they had enough time

2 out of 3 students took practice tests online to get ready (who took it online)
at least 87% of them use a computer or tablet at least weekly at home
87% in ELA found it easy to type answers, but 58% in math (and 41% in math found it hard)
81% of teachers had never before administered an online test; 48% said that training did not prepare them to solve basic problems that were technology related; 46% said it did
vendor did not provide level of support teachers are accustomed to

state reporting that questions on opting out came from 43 districts plus multiple public forums, but 86 students were recorded as opting out; state proposes that even if absent students were opting out, it was still less than 1%
"Many PARCC states experiencing far greater resistance to implementation of new standards and assessments than is Massachusetts"
and he just did follow that up with commenting that there is no opting out...after he gave the stats of those who did.

most schools need more devices to test all students
need "proctor caching" to not run live online

Can districts use tablets? Yes, but lose part of the screen to keyboards, so all had external keyboards, but students said that they were used to scrolling.
concern from Board member around hardware and infrastructure: "still to me a lot of schools with restricted access to computers"
"setting around a potential issue around equity" on access to technology
Question on numbers (the 81,000 is the total, includes End of Year, as well)
data is not at school or district level yet; just have state level data
Hopeful Senate will act on bond bill plus increase in ERate
"a number of schools will not be where they need to be, or students will not have the opportunity to get used to these as part of instruction"

And another report to come after End of Year