Ohio develops new Common Core standards after dropping PARCC tests

Ohio develops new Common Core tests after dropping PARCC
Jessa Schroeder and Raymond Allan

In 2010, the State Board of Education adopted new Common Core learning standards in English, language arts and math in hopes to better prepare students for their education beyond high school.

The tests were not successful, and in June 2015, the State replaced the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (or PARCC tests), with the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The AIR test includes math and English, along with science and social studies testing, which began administration this past year.

“With the adoption of the new standards, the State also said they would have a whole new round of assessments, so we looked at those being developed before it was go-time,” said Karen Rumley, Director of Instructional Program at Kent City Schools.

“Every discipline has a set of standards, when the standards were adopted by the State, including Kent City schools, we worked on revising our curriculums and our instructional practices to meet the demands of all of the new standards.”

Rumley said the AIR test not only measures a new set of standards, but the format is different than the PARCC, in terms of time commitment and the type of questions asked.

“We spent quite a bit of time working with our teachers discussing what the assessment looks like, how the questions are formulated and how can we prepare these students to answer these questions. To a certain extent, if we are teaching to the rigor of the standards anyway, they should be prepared to answer the questions. Because the format was different, we felt there was a little bit of extra coaching to go along with that.”

 

 

There is been a public outcry towards the administration of these tests for the past few years, mainly involved in this outcry are parents and teachers, as they are skeptical about the benefits of the tests to students and to the framework of the classroom.

According to StateImpact Ohio, the State law requires schools to administer these tests, but there’s no state law stating the parents of students require their kids to take them.

Alexandria Huart, Computer Information Systems student, said she was in several AP classes and kept up good grades, so she was not required to take the standardized tests, but had the benefit of earning scholarships through it and being better placed in college.

“I figured it was just like other standardized tests I’ve taken before, and it wouldn’t be anything new, it would just be going through the motion of old information in a standardized test.”

Huart said she felt prepared for the tests, however she does not feel that she learned anything new from them.

“The teachers would prepare us for the tests throughout the year, but they would mainly focus on them a few weeks before the tests. With AP classes they didn’t focus as much as other classes.”

Rumley said a challenge of the old tests is that they were geared toward the old standards, and there’s much controversy about what Common Core is all about. “If we’re going to say our students are college and career ready, we need a test that’s going to be able to demonstrate that — And (I think) this will be better able to do that.”

She said AIR is a much more comfortable format as they know what kind of questions to expect, and they now have more knowledge on how the process has been developed over the years.

[pullquote]“The interesting part of the whole Common Core/testing is how much people get the two confused.” [/pullquote]”When people talk about PARCC testing, it turns into an outcry against the Common Core standards. Common Core are the standards, and the testing is the testing.”

The AIR testing will be administered in one setting, with shorter tests that require less time commitment. Results of the tests will be shown in months to come.