Mathematica: Testing the PARCC Test
Massachusetts commissioned Mathematica to conduct a study in which it compared Massachusetts’ MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) to PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers).
The study was limited to comparing MCAS grade 10 math and ELA tests to “corresponding” PARCC tests (which means this study did not consider the most popular PARCC tests, those for students in grades 3 through 8).
The high-school-level MCAS and PARCC tests were given to 866 first-year Massachusetts college students, and the ability of the MCAS and PARCC tests to determine the proportion of these students determined to be “college ready”– those with a GPA of B or higher.
(That would have ruled out former President George W. Bush, who was a C student. Guess the White House resident who brought America punitive, test-score-obsessed No Child Left Behind wasn’t “college ready.”)
Now, the advertised outcome is that MCAS and PARCC “have similar ability to predict college grades.”
“Similar ability” is suspiciously safe terminology, as it betrays nothing of actual Mathematica: Testing the PARCC Test | deutsch29:
