MILLSTONE — About 40 pupils in the Millstone Township K-8 School District refused to take the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exam in the recent first round of testing, according to Superintendent of Schools Scott Feder.
PARCC is a mandated test for assessing Common Core curriculum standards among pupils in the third through 11th grades. This is the first year the exam has been administered. Children take the test on computers.
Some parents in communities around New Jersey have raised various issues with the exam and refused to let their children sit for the test when it was administered earlier this month.
At a Board of Education meeting in February, several Millstone parents spoke about the PARCC test. Some parents posed questions to district administrators and others voiced varying concerns.
Cindy Paglia asked if administrators in the future would review the PARCC testing scores and compare them with scores that were achieved on the NJASK exam that students previously took.
Gina Crane said she is not in favor of PARCC or Common Core testing. She asked how much the district spent to get ready for PARCC testing.
Feder said there would be expenditures for wireless hubs.
Ann Marie Denney has five children, and said she witnessed a change in their stress level in regard to standardized testing.
Denney said even though she told her children she was not concerned about the testing and told them they should not worry about it, they talked about the PARCC testing on a daily basis.
Teachers can teach for PARCC, Denney said, but she added that they should stop talking about it and stress that the SAT is more important.
Marcie Leby said college administrators are not looking at SAT scores. She said she does not believe the schools should be following the standards just because administrators feel it is what is supposed to happen.
Leby said she is teaching her daughter to question who is making money by testing children. She said she is opposed to feeding a system that makes education an endeavor for a corporation.
She said she believes that if children do not perform well on PARCC, the company that came up with the exam will sell another test to educators to remediate the poor scores.
Feder said children who refuse to take the PARCC exam will stay in another classroom while the test is being administered to their classmates.
Additional PARCC testing is scheduled for May.