Saturday, January 23, 2016

Why Didn’t PARCC Issue a Press Release About Skandera as Chair? | deutsch29

Why Didn’t PARCC Issue a Press Release About Skandera as Chair? | deutsch29:

Why Didn’t PARCC Issue a Press Release About Skandera as Chair?


David Connerty-Marin is the communications director for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC).  That’s his title on the PARCC web page. It is also his title according to his Linkedin bio and his Twitter page.
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 David Connerty-Marin
However, it seems that Connerty-Marin chose not to communicate a major change in the running of PARCC: the change in PARCC chair.
Up until November 2015, the PARCC chair was Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester.
Chester is no longer PARCC chair.
New Mexico Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera is now PARCC chair.
And for some reason, PARCC communications director Connerty-Marin chose not to communicate this change. It is not mentioned on the PARCC Press Release page.
Also, the @PARCCPlace page mysteriously omits the change in the PARCC chair as well as the issue of Massachusetts board of ed choosing to create a MCAS-PARCC hybrid. Unlike the PARCC press release page, @PARCCPlace has had activity up to January 21, 2016. And like the PARCC press release page, @PARCCPlace includes an announcement of Louisiana’s, uh, “choosing” PARCC for “nearly half its test questions” (note: the 2015 La. legislature actually put a cap on the percentage of PARCC questions: 49 percent):


As one continues scrolling though November and December 2015 tweets @PARCCPlace, no mention of Massachusetts and its MCAS-PARCC hybrid, in the news on November 17, 2015, or the change from Chester to Skandera as PARCC chair– a decision in a November 12, 2015, PARCC press release.
A mystery.
On January 19, 2016, I was surprised to see that Skandera had replaced Chester as PARCC chair. I noticed that PARCC communications director Connerty-Marin had issued no press release– neither about Chester’s resigning as PARCC chair nor Why Didn’t PARCC Issue a Press Release About Skandera as Chair? | deutsch29: