Elementary school teachers: How PARCC testing is affecting our classrooms - The Washington Post

Elementary school teachers: How PARCC testing is affecting our classrooms - The Washington Post:

Elementary school teachers: How PARCC testing is affecting our classrooms

With the spring standardized testing season under way, we are hearing from a growing number of teachers, principals and even superintendents who are speaking out about the negative effects of high-stakes testing on teaching and learning.  For example, Steve Kramer,  superintendent of Madeira City Schools in Ohio, recently wrote an open letter about why he is “profoundly concerned” about new Common Core testing. The following post is an open letter signed by 20 teachers at Barbieri Elementary School in Framingham, Massachusetts, who detail how Common Core testing is affecting their classrooms.

Here’s the open letter:

We are teachers at Barbieri Elementary School who want to make clear what is happening in your children’s classrooms as a result of decisions made in offices far away.

This year, 3rd-8th graders in Framingham Public Schools will be taking the test known as PARCC, which will be replacing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).

PARCC was created by the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, one of two multi-state consortia given $360 million in federal funds to design new standardized tests to hold students, schools and teachers “accountable.”

As teachers we cannot stay silent as PARCC makes its way into our classrooms.

In the words of Soujourner Truth at the 1851 Women’s Convention, “Where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.” Nationally, we’re hearing a racket about the problem of standardized tests driving instruction, knocking the process of education clearly out of kilter. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Test Prep takes time away from REAL Reading, Writing and Math Instruction.

For example, leading up to the PARCC exam, regular instruction is suspended in reading and writing classes in order to prepare our students for the kind of passages and questions they will encounter. On average we will cancel six weeks of reading and writing instruction to prepare for the tests. The time for independent reading, read-alouds and word study is replaced with repeated practice answering multiple choice questions and writing multi-paragraph essays in less time than they will ever be asked to do in high school or college. This does not even account for the instruction time lost to actually taking the PARCC tests. This year students will lose seven additional learning days in Grade Three, eight days in Grade Four and 

Elementary school teachers: How PARCC testing is affecting our classrooms - The Washington Post: