Dear Community Members and Parents:
Ask most any educator in the State of Illinois and I believe they will tell you this is a stressful and confusing time in public education. Educators are concerned with the over emphasis on accountability through high stakes testing and the ever growing list of mandates forced upon public schools. It seems we spend less time educating the whole student and are being forced to recognize only the most academic approaches of educating children. The culmination of a child’s education is more than a standardized test score. Educators in the PORTA District want to help grow individual students’ social, emotional and academic skills through a balanced curriculum that focuses on students’ ever-changing needs. Illinois, like many states in the union, have moved away from educating the total child, and I for one believe we need to be moving back in another direction. Please understand we are not avoiding accountability, in fact we welcome it. We just do not see the value in ranking students, teachers and school districts with a single high stakes test as the only accountability measure.
As an example, let us consider the new state mandated PARCC standardized assessment. These tests, which are replacing the ISAT, will be administered in our District in March and again in May. For more than a year we have worked to upgrade technology infrastructure and worked to stay up to date on the PARCC assessment. With every passing day we grow less optimistic this new assessment will offer quality information for our staff, students and more importantly parents. We are concerned about the amount of instructional time we will lose, the impact this will have on students, and the unforeseen ramification the results will have on our district.
Our administration and Staff have worked to stay up-to-date on the PARCC assessment and feel compelled to share concerns with our parents and public. Initially, we have become very disenchanted with the perceived lack of organization and rapid nature of the implementation PARCC. In the last year we have conducted a statewide pilot, just after a quick and poorly handled implementation of controversial Common Core State Standards. In this school year, our confidence level has not been increased.
Recently, during a Superintendent’s council meeting, teacher’s voiced their concerns with students’ abilities to complete the PARCC testing in a timely manner not only because the questions are very difficult, but because the test is completed online and computer skills play a major role in a students success rate. In the PARCC Assessment, fluency, (the ability to easily understand a concept) is measured by the ability to work through problems at a fast pace. Completing this task on a pencil and paper test is something most children understand, but because students here at PORTA have varying levels of experience with computer skills, fluency on the PARCC exam will be reflective of a family’s economic condition and access to technology. Additionally, during this conversation it was noted that students and teachers were already stressed over completing the PARCC exam successfully. Students were upset that they were unable to complete the entire practice test in the allotted time and teachers were stressed over the complicated questions and additional training needed so that students would understand the process of taking the PARCC exam. Please understand this short experience of practicing for the PARCC is but a fraction of time that will be needed to complete that actual test.
As a segue into the amount of time dedicated to high stakes testing, it is expected that students 3-8 will be tested for 13-14 hours, double that of previous standardized testing. More importantly, at Central School alone, twenty days of education will be interrupted to complete the PARCC examination. In other words, the PARCC exam will take 11% of your student’s time away from valuable instruction with a professional educator who cares how your student performs.
In a perfect world districts like ours would assess students throughout the year, using that information to compare student growth to other similar students and previous year growth. Teachers would have valuable information at their fingertips to adjust a student’s curricular needs and could include the home to help advance a students needs. To be clear, our district does regularly test the skills of students and make adjustments to curricular offerings, but we could do so much more if we were better able to manage our testing regime so that we did not overburden our students with excessive testing.
As we move forward, the PORTA District wants our families and community members to understand that we do recognize the need for assessing our students’ growth. That information should be valuable and timely. Additionally, the PORTA District has been and always will comply with State Mandates and Standards. However, we do not believe that we should rely on one single standardized test as the final snapshot of a student’s ability or a schools success. We will utilize data from the PARCC test that we feel is relevant, but will in the future focus much more on your student’s yearly growth through various methods in the classroom. It is our goal to insure you understand, as a parent, your student’s immediate needs and we work together to help develop our student’s educational needs.
It is important that we all stay informed and understand how State and Federal reforms impact our students. The PORTA Board of Education is currently evaluating the district’s future goals, vision and mission and at the heart of the discussion is student learning and assessment. As we move forward we will continue to share information in regards to the District’s goals. Please feel free to share your perspective with an educator you know.
Thank You.
Matthew W. Brue
PORTA Superintendent.
Ask most any educator in the State of Illinois and I believe they will tell you this is a stressful and confusing time in public education. Educators are concerned with the over emphasis on accountability through high stakes testing and the ever growing list of mandates forced upon public schools. It seems we spend less time educating the whole student and are being forced to recognize only the most academic approaches of educating children. The culmination of a child’s education is more than a standardized test score. Educators in the PORTA District want to help grow individual students’ social, emotional and academic skills through a balanced curriculum that focuses on students’ ever-changing needs. Illinois, like many states in the union, have moved away from educating the total child, and I for one believe we need to be moving back in another direction. Please understand we are not avoiding accountability, in fact we welcome it. We just do not see the value in ranking students, teachers and school districts with a single high stakes test as the only accountability measure.
As an example, let us consider the new state mandated PARCC standardized assessment. These tests, which are replacing the ISAT, will be administered in our District in March and again in May. For more than a year we have worked to upgrade technology infrastructure and worked to stay up to date on the PARCC assessment. With every passing day we grow less optimistic this new assessment will offer quality information for our staff, students and more importantly parents. We are concerned about the amount of instructional time we will lose, the impact this will have on students, and the unforeseen ramification the results will have on our district.
Our administration and Staff have worked to stay up-to-date on the PARCC assessment and feel compelled to share concerns with our parents and public. Initially, we have become very disenchanted with the perceived lack of organization and rapid nature of the implementation PARCC. In the last year we have conducted a statewide pilot, just after a quick and poorly handled implementation of controversial Common Core State Standards. In this school year, our confidence level has not been increased.
Recently, during a Superintendent’s council meeting, teacher’s voiced their concerns with students’ abilities to complete the PARCC testing in a timely manner not only because the questions are very difficult, but because the test is completed online and computer skills play a major role in a students success rate. In the PARCC Assessment, fluency, (the ability to easily understand a concept) is measured by the ability to work through problems at a fast pace. Completing this task on a pencil and paper test is something most children understand, but because students here at PORTA have varying levels of experience with computer skills, fluency on the PARCC exam will be reflective of a family’s economic condition and access to technology. Additionally, during this conversation it was noted that students and teachers were already stressed over completing the PARCC exam successfully. Students were upset that they were unable to complete the entire practice test in the allotted time and teachers were stressed over the complicated questions and additional training needed so that students would understand the process of taking the PARCC exam. Please understand this short experience of practicing for the PARCC is but a fraction of time that will be needed to complete that actual test.
As a segue into the amount of time dedicated to high stakes testing, it is expected that students 3-8 will be tested for 13-14 hours, double that of previous standardized testing. More importantly, at Central School alone, twenty days of education will be interrupted to complete the PARCC examination. In other words, the PARCC exam will take 11% of your student’s time away from valuable instruction with a professional educator who cares how your student performs.
In a perfect world districts like ours would assess students throughout the year, using that information to compare student growth to other similar students and previous year growth. Teachers would have valuable information at their fingertips to adjust a student’s curricular needs and could include the home to help advance a students needs. To be clear, our district does regularly test the skills of students and make adjustments to curricular offerings, but we could do so much more if we were better able to manage our testing regime so that we did not overburden our students with excessive testing.
As we move forward, the PORTA District wants our families and community members to understand that we do recognize the need for assessing our students’ growth. That information should be valuable and timely. Additionally, the PORTA District has been and always will comply with State Mandates and Standards. However, we do not believe that we should rely on one single standardized test as the final snapshot of a student’s ability or a schools success. We will utilize data from the PARCC test that we feel is relevant, but will in the future focus much more on your student’s yearly growth through various methods in the classroom. It is our goal to insure you understand, as a parent, your student’s immediate needs and we work together to help develop our student’s educational needs.
It is important that we all stay informed and understand how State and Federal reforms impact our students. The PORTA Board of Education is currently evaluating the district’s future goals, vision and mission and at the heart of the discussion is student learning and assessment. As we move forward we will continue to share information in regards to the District’s goals. Please feel free to share your perspective with an educator you know.
Thank You.
Matthew W. Brue
PORTA Superintendent.