Parish bracing for PARCC as testing dates near

Apprehension, anxiety and a steely resolve can be found in classrooms across Acadia Parish this month.
March is the month that all teachers and students have had circled on their collective calendars — for one reason or another — since the beginning of the school year: PARCC Testing.
“We’re getting apprehensive,” said Acadia Parish Superintendent John Bourque. “With PARCC we knew it was going to be more difficult.
“In our case, I think our teachers and kids are prepared. I think they’ll do well.
“I respect the hard work teachers and students have done under adverse conditions. I think our people have responded well — real well.”
Since August, the message to Acadia Parish teachers has been clear, just teach and let the school district handle the scores as they come in. For their part, teachers seem to have taken that message to heart, according to the superintendent.
PARCC — the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers — will be administered to third through eighth graders.
Testing in Phase 1 is during the week of March 16 through March 20. The iLEAP and LEAP social studies and science testing will take place April 14 through April 17 and Phase 2 of PARCC is set for May 4 through May 7.
The tests themselves have become somewhat of a thing to fear in recent months as the numbers of students opting out has been wildly publicized in parishes across South Louisiana.
In Acadia, Bourque says the parish has had a few students opt out, but that it is basically on par with other years.
“I think the more they talk about it, the worse it is,” he said. “We’ve had some opt-outs in the past with students who are not as successful on tests. The reason we’ve been successful is we get those students who may not be the highest (achieving) to do the best they can to help the school’s score.
“In this case, we’re just asking every kid to work a little harder that’s taking the test to help the school out.”
Bourque pointed out that a lot of the opt-outs are coming from students who typically are good students. They, and their families, are concerned with what it will show on the student’s records.
However, even with all the apprehension nationwide over the test and the growing number of opt-outs locally, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is not easing up on what an opt-outs mean for schools.
Schools will receive a zero toward the school’s performance score for every student that opts out. Meanwhile the teacher and student receive no ramifications.
If BESE decides to change its mind, it will do so after seeing just how many students opt out, that message was delivered in its panel vote Thursday.
A BESE committee rejected a proposal by BESE member Jane Smith that would have instructed the state to not factor zeroes from opt-outs into school performance scores, district scores or teacher evaluations.
“What I’m trying to do is help the school districts who have no control,” Smith said.
But, Louisiana State Superintendent John White said Smith’s proposal was premature and could have potentially violated the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
“I’m just suggesting that we don’t do anything hastily,” White said. “Your movement ... to issue a report based on the real facts is the right policy.”
White said there will be eight months between the time the tests are given and the scores released.
“I think we are taking the first step and the appropriate step toward assessing the situation,” White said. “Let’s look at the numbers, and let’s have a dialogue about that report. We will still have five months after the tests before the school performance scores are issued. I think the report is a good first step.”
In a lot of cases, Bourque points to the reality of the situation with PARCC versus the perception of it as part of the problem.
For starters, the perception is that a fourth grader takes a PARCC test and is done within a couple of hours. In reality, the student could be testing for 12 to 15 hours over a couple of weeks in total.
“That is a big strain,” he said. “I think the amount of tests these young kids have to go through is a strain because you take some today, some tomorrow and some the next day. It’s a lot of pressure on the young kid — and the teacher and the parents.
“We would like to see in some way, shape or form streamlining (testing), where we spend more time teaching kids what they need to know to survive in the real world.
“Our objective should be to make all kids useful and taxpayers, so, we’ve got to reach each child.”
Courses like technical writing and business math in the upper grades could do wonders in those fields, as Bourque pointed out, where a student would have a chance to learn how to write a résumé and/or balance a checkbook.
“We’re missing a golden opportunity to give the kids what they need to be successful in the world,” said Bourque.
“How many parents have a checkbook (today)? So, they don’t get it from home; they don’t get it from (school).”
The perception of public schools continuing to be woeful is not helping matters either.
“Public schools are a reflection of society,” said Bourque. “Do you have drugs in society? Do you have violence? Do you have this? Do you have that?
“I think we do a real good job of controlling that, but it’s still out there.”
Secondly, PARCC was designed to help gauge where each state lines up against one another. However the number of states still involved with PARCC is down to nine.
“We’re stuck with just comparing ourselves to eight other states, which is not what it was intended to be,” said Bourque.
Finally, PARCC as an assessment of a student and school has some major flaws.
“I think the biggest thing is, we all want standards, but we want assessments that are going to improve education,” said Bourque. “What we have now, the assessments are like a scoreboard for football or soccer. You can look at a letter grade and look at all these things, but there’s nothing to really say if it’s an effective school or not.
“How do you measure a safe and orderly environment, if you just measure test scores?”
More than anything, local teachers, parents and students crave stability within education, the superintendent explained.
“It’s so much guessing. If you said, ‘This is it’, and go with it, we can adjust,” said Bourque. “The uncertainty, I think that’s the biggest thing with parents and kids and teachers.
“If they would just come out in May and say ‘This is it’, we could adjust to it. The joke was we keep building the airplane while we’re in the air. And, that was a joke, but it’s the truth. We’re fixing to land and we hope ‘they’ finish it.”