Is PARCC Good or Bad?
When PARCC ( Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers)was first mentioned, all of the teachers were saying how terrible it was going to be, and how little time they had to teach everything that needed to be taught.
I didn’t personally think it was going to be that bad and that everyone was just over exaggerating, but then I actually took the test. They gave us a lot more time than needed.During the English portion of the test I noticed that everyone was getting done well before time was up.The reason for this could have been the fact that they gave us ninety minutes for ten questions, seventy-five minutes for seven questions, and an hour for six questions.When I told my dad about the amount of time we got he asked me if it was math.When I told him it was English he thought that maybe there was a huge essay at the end.
After I told him that that wasn’t the case he thought we should’ve had less time, or the test itself should have been harder. Another problem I had with the test was the Geometry portion of the test.While the English part was too easy, the Geometry part was very difficult.Mrs. Justus taught us new things every day, but there were still parts of the test that many people did not understand.No matter how many things Mrs.
Justus would teach us, it still wasn’t enough to prepare us for the PARCC test.Teachers are evaluated on how well the students are doing on the test.If we don’t learn everything because of the school curriculum then how are we supposed to do good on the test?The teachers should not be evaluated on how much the students have learned especially when some students mean to make their teacher look bad, or just not try at all. From what I’ve seen the work given to elementary students to prepare them for the PARCC test is very difficult for their age.The small children should not be given work that is way too hard for them to comprehend.PARCC starts from kindergarten to twelfth grade and is given on computers.
These small children should not be taking tests on computers, when it’s even hard for some high school students to take tests on electronic devices. There were some advantages such as the test notifying you if you didn’t answer all of the questions.On a written test someone could forget that they left a question blank, and they would have no way to know that they did. Another advantage of PARCC testing is that it would be harder for tests to be lost and easier to read open responses.On written open responses students have different handwriting and some are hard to read, but with a computerized test it would be easier to read them since they’re typed up. PARCC is certainly not the worse test I have ever taken, but it wasn’t anywhere near one of the best.PARCC had it’s advantages and disadvantages, but if they could work on it and fix some of the problems, then PARCC would be a good test.
