The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) will convene on November 17 to decide whether Massachusetts should abandon MCAS, its 17-year-old testing system, in favor of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) assessment, or alternatively pursue what officials call “MCAS 2.0” — a test of uncertain content and format that could take years to develop. This decision has generated concerns among diverse stakeholders: parents, principals, and political leaders alike. The vote has raised concerns for stakeholders ranging from parents and principals to politicians. As teachers, the choice for us is clear: the PARCC assessment makes good sense for students in Massachusetts.
For two years, many of us have worked to prepare students for PARCC, and we have been teaching its underlying standards for five years. A subset of our profession, particularly those in Boston Public Schools, piloted the PARCC assessment last year in place of MCAS. We have observed consistently that the rigor of the assessment has a positive impact on our teaching at all grade levels. Some of us, including those who teach in Boston Public Schools, administered a pilot PARCC assessment last year instead of MCAS. Many of us have been preparing students for the PARCC assessment for two years and implementing the standards it measures for five.
Foundation-building begins in pre-kindergarten through second grade classrooms, where educators focus on the competencies required for success when PARCC testing becomes mandatory in third grade: analyzing, interpreting, and citing evidence. Pre-kindergarten through second grade teachers have begun setting the foundation for success in third grade – the first grade of mandated PARCC testing – with a focus on the skills that are essential for success on PARCC: analyzing, interpreting, and citing evidence. It’s no coincidence that these are also skills essential for success in life.
Consider a typical lesson: students examine plant life cycles through texts, then debate optimal growing conditions for beans before conducting controlled experiments. They write conclusions and evaluate peers’ work. This is the kind of next-generation instruction the PARCC assessment not only inspires, but demands. In one of our classrooms, students read about plant life cycles. They use the texts to debate the most effective growing conditions for beans, and then run tests with controlled and experimental conditions. They end by writing about their findings, and critique one another’s conclusions. And our students reap the benefits.
Upper-level writers now synthesize multiple texts to construct and support original arguments—a rigor level most of our generation encountered only in college. In upper grade level writing, students are becoming responsible for synthesizing multiple texts in order to develop and defend original theses. This is a level of rigor in which many in our generation did not engage until college – but it is precisely what college professors in freshman writing courses will require.
Ninth graders invest weeks exploring Imperialism’s impact, reading primary accounts from both Indian and British perspectives, analyzing period poetry and political cartoons, and citing at least six sources to form conclusions about how colonization affected both colonizer and colonized. Students in one of our ninth grade classrooms spend weeks preparing for the writing demands of PARCC by analyzing the age of Imperialism. They read primary source accounts of both Indians and British during the British occupation of India as well as analyzing poems, cartoons and other popular media of the day. Citing a minimum of six sources, they draw their own conclusions about greater impact of Imperialism by analyzing how Imperialism transformed both the colonizer and the colonized societies. This is deep work for 14- and 15-year-olds, and PARCC is pushing teachers to set up the kind of classrooms where it can happen.
Next month’s BESE decision extends beyond assessment selection; it fundamentally addresses how Massachusetts educators will equip students for their futures and what unambiguous standards we will uphold. The BESE vote next month is not just about what kind of assessment students in Massachusetts will take. Equally important, it is about how we, as teachers, will prepare our students to succeed in the next phase of their lives, It is about presenting clear and decisive expectations for what Massachusetts educators must prepare students to be able to do.
MCAS was designed without college and career readiness in mind. MCAS 2.0, “PARCC-Lite,” or any hybrid proposal could require years to construct, with content remaining unclear—time and certainty we cannot afford to lose. MCAS was never meant to assess college and career readiness. MCAS 2.0, “PARCC-Lite,” or whatever we call a proposed hybrid alternative, could take years to develop, with its potential content unclear. That’s time we don’t have, and ambiguity we don’t need.
Only PARCC demands excellent teaching today, which is precisely what Massachusetts students merit. The PARCC assessment is the only option that demands phenomenal teaching right now, and that is what students in Massachusetts deserve.
Signed,
Gwendolin Bandi, John J. Doran School, Fall River Public Schools
Jeff Cipriani, Orchard Gardens K-8, Boston Public Schools
Colleen Considine, Curtis Guild Elementary School, Boston Public Schools
Dan Hackett, Boston Latin Academy, Boston Public Schools
Amy Howland, Academy of the Pacific Rim, Hyde Park
Natalie Khalatov-Krimnus, Revere High School, Revere Public Schools
Carli Kusiolek, Salem Academy Charter School, Salem
Colleen Labbe, Lee Academy Pilot School, Boston Public Schools
Erin Lane, Garfield Middle School, Revere Public Schools
Wing Leung, Boston Latin School, Boston Public Schools
Bernadine Lormilus, Winthrop Elementary School, Boston Public Schools
Farida Mama, UP Academy Dorchester, Boston Public Schools
Colleen Mason, Lee Academy Pilot School, Boston Public Schools
Kalimah Rahim, New Mission High School, Boston Public Schools
Amanda Schreckengaust, Brookline High School, Brookline Public Schools
Aaron Stone, Boston Day and Evening Academy, Boston Public Schools
Brittany Vetter, Excel Academy Charter School, Chelsea