PARCC Tests May Finally be On the Way Out

March 27,2018

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Trenton NJ, One bright spot in education policy changes . Governor Murphy told audiences during his campaign that he would end PARCC tests “day one,” a promise that could not be kept due to state and federal requirements to use assessments to measure student progress and evaluate schools.  It would be unrealistic to think that PARCC assessments would be eliminated this spring with no plan to replace these state tests.  Acting Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet issued a memo on March 6 to school districts informing them that he will establish an advisory group to study the next generation of assessments and schedule a listening tour to meet with students, teachers, administrators, parents and community members in every county.

Commissioner Repollet affirmed his commitment to transition away from the PARCC tests and to improve NJ’s assessments. Understanding that this will take time, the PARCC tests will be administered this spring as planned.

Repollet stated that “ There are many issues to take into consideration when transitioning an assessment system, including the amount of time needed to procure a new vender, the fiscal and operational impact of assessments, and continued alignment of our NJ Student Learning Standards.  Additionally, as state and federal law require all states to use assessments as one method to gauge and compare progress of students and student groups and to evaluate how schools support learning, we need to ensure our next generation of assessments provides a fair and accurate picture of student progress towards the mastery of the skills we expect them to achieve.”