By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The boycott of state standardized tests by students at Princeton High School showed signs last week of waning, with rising participation rates in the often-criticized Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test., Figures supplied by the district showed that 66 percent of juniors, 36.8 percent of sophomores and 96.4 percent of freshmen took PARCC, a measure of math and English skills. According to the district, this was the first year that PARCC was mandatory for freshmen to graduate., While year-to-year comparisons were not immediately available, the number of students at Princeton High taking the test was much higher, overall, than in the first year of the computer-based test, in 2015, when parents opted their children out in large numbers. Two years ago, for example, only 30 juniors out of 370 took the English exam, amid concerns about so-called “high stakes” testing., Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said Monday that participation rates last week were up “considerably over our first couple of years of PARCC testing, particularly at the ninth-grade level, where now it becomes a graduation requirement.”, One of the issues the district faced in the first year of PARCC was not having enough computers for students to take the test, something officials pledged to correct. But at the school board meeting two weeks ago, officials heard another technology related related concern from student board representatives Abby Emison and Brian Li, based on a survey they did of their fellow PHS students., “We also received many comments about the wifi situation during PARCC testing, or rather lack of it, and we are hoping this, too, is something we can fix,” according to a copy of their report posted on the district website., School board president Patrick Sullivan could not be reached for comment., New Jersey is in its third year of PARCC, a test that replaced earlier assessments the state had used to measure student performance in the classroom; the test is given annually to students in grades 3 to 11. States are federally mandated to measure how well their students are doing., “New Jersey expects positive trends to continue in the third year of PARCC, just as we saw from year one to year two, where a higher percentage of students met or exceeded expectations in nearly all subjects and grade levels, and more students participated in each of the PARCC tests,” said state Department of Education spokesman David Saenz Jr. by email Monday., “Federal law continues to require that states administer a statewide assessment and for students to participate on that assessment,” he said. “Schools that do not have at least 95 percent participation, in overall students and with subgroups, on the PARCC assessment will be penalized in their overall proficient rate.”, Princeton had fallen into that category after the first year of the exam. The district was required to develop a plan to raise participation rates to meet the 95-percent-threshold., “New Jersey state law does not provide an option to refuse to participate on PARCC,” Saenz said. “The Department expects all students to participate in the annual assessment.”, State lawmakers, however, are seeking to roll back the mandate that PARCC be a graduation requirement, based on state Board of Education regulations approved last year., “It is time for the state Board of Education to revisit the graduation requirements and put forth an assessment that does not put the future of our students in peril,” said state Assemblywoman Marlene Caride (D-36), chairwoman of the Assembly education committee, in a statement in February.
