Hawthorne High School will be participating in New Jersey’s Department of Education pilot program for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) on Monday, March 24; Tuesday, March 25; and Wednesday, March 26, 2014. Two Algebra I classes and two English III classes will participate in the online test that will replace the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA) in the 2014-2015 school year.
Like the HSPA, the purpose of the PARCC is to determine a student’s college and career readiness. However, the PARCC is very different from the HSPA. To start, the PARCC is an electronic test taken on the computer, as opposed to the pencil/paper HSPA. Additionally, at the high school level, grades 9, 10,and 11 will be required to take the test, as opposed to the HSPA that was required only for grade 11.
To help prepare HHS students for the 2015 PARCC test, a practice test will be administered to the selected classes on March 19. Teachers of these classes have been trained on how to administer the test properly and have been prepping students on how the PARCC test webpage is set up and how it works. The test will be taken by English III students on Monday, March 24 and Tuesday, March 25 for 120 minutes in the morning, as well as for 75 minutes in the morning on Wednesday, March 26. The Algebra I classes will be taking their portion of the test on Monday, March 24 and Tuesday, March 25 for 75 minutes in the afternoon.
As stated on Parcconline.org, “The PARCC is a consortium of 17 states plus the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands working together to develop a common set of K-12 assessments in English and math anchored in what it takes to be ready for college and careers.” The 17 participating states are: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Tennessee.
The PARCC Field Test will give students and educators the chance to experience the PARCC assessments before the official testing begins in the spring of 2015. The field test results will also help the state prepare and improve the test for students next year.