Cristal Delgado was “almost hypnotized” by the new state assessment on her computer screen. Taking the test online instead of putting pencil to paper helped the 11th-grader focus and felt natural for a digital native who likes to read on her phone.
The test had fewer questions than the ones she grew up with, but with more in-depth problems that made her think, she said.
Across the same computer lab at Sheridan High School, southwest of Denver, Luis Holguin was growing frustrated.
A complicated essay question that asked him to compare three texts — the first was like a poem, another read like it was written in the 1920s and the last was more modern — shook his confidence.
He longed for the previous state test, TCAP, which he said was easier to prepare for and based more on what he learned in class.
The two high school juniors were literally test subjects last week, among an estimated 540,000 Colorado students being introduced to a new yardstick — interactive online state tests that are supposed to burst old bubble tests, reward critical thinking and measure whether kids are on track for college or careers in the 21st century.
Opinions are divided over the new math and English tests gauging where students in grades 3-11 stand on state academic standards adopted in 2010. The state’s first PARCC testing window opens Monday, but 75 districts accounting for more than eight in 10 test-taking Colorado students began early last week, officials say.
The assessments, which are supposed to be more demanding, were developed by PARCC, the Partnership of Readiness for College and Careers, a 12-state testing collective that includes Colorado.
The tests are being promoted as a major improvement, rewarding reasoning instead of memorization, offering a more engaging experience and raising the bar so students can succeed in life.
They also have been criticized as just another standardized test that takes too much time, strains schools with limited resources and means little to students.
Others say unproven tests shouldn’t factor in school and district accreditation ratings — or be a component of teacher evaluations.
Much of the criticism is focused less on PARCC and more on an overall testing load that just about everyone agrees is too heavy.
Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg praised the new tests as more sophisticated and focused on problem-solving. He also has advocated for fewer, shorter state tests. DPS, the state’s largest district, begins PARCC testing Monday.
“There is some irony here,” Boasberg said. “Some of the folks saying we hate these fill-in-the-bubble tests are saying these new tests that require you to write and explain yourself are too hard. Most people who have looked at them overwhelmingly say they are a huge step forward.”
Engaged testing
Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, all students must be tested annually in math and English in grades 3-8 and once in high school.
PARCC tests are part of a broader testing system called the Colorado Measures of Academic Success. CMAS includes Colorado-specific science and social studies tests that will be given in four grade levels this spring.
The PARCC tests in math and English are aligned with the Common Core State Standards, which have become politically divisive.
Past state tests quizzed students on the meaning of words. PARCC still does, but in the context of fiction or nonfiction passages.
Past tests challenged students to write, but often about their experiences or feelings, said Joanie Funderburk, a Cherry Creek School District math educator who worked on PARCC’s development.
PARCC calls on students to read texts or watch videos and cite evidence.
Math tests no longer are about grasping concepts enough to just get an answer right. Students taking PARCC are confronted with multistep problems and asked to show how they reached their conclusions.
Critics say Common Core math is needlessly complicated.
“We are not moving away from getting the right answer and how to do computations. That is still important,” Funderburk said. “But we know that understanding what is underlying those processes is also important, as is applying them to real-life situations.”
PARCC tests are given in two parts.
The first half underway now is the heavier lift, performance-based “extended tasks” that require more time to hand-score. Students will take the second half, featuring shorter-answer questions, closer to the end of year.
Districts have criticized the two windows for stretching out testing.
Jill Hawley, an associate state education commissioner, acknowledged the problem and said Colorado will work with PARCC to try to allow districts to complete both parts in the same time frame.
The challenge, she said, is testing kids at the right time to demonstrate what they know and still get results back sooner.
Schools and parents will not get the first PARCC results until next fall, but officials promise a quicker turnaround in the future.
Hawley portrayed the online aspect as the tests’ greatest innovation, which she said “engages kids in ways they learn today.”
Preparations
Students can electronically cross out answers they think are wrong with a red “X,” to help with reasoning. One of the Sheridan High students, Cristal Delgado, liked that she could highlight text online.
But the technology also poses challenges. Some districts are cordoning off computer labs for weeks of testing. Others worry about the performance of low-income children without access to devices at home.
State officials offered a pencil-and-paper option to districts on all math tests and third-grade English PARCC tests. Only about 15 percent of Colorado students will use that option, which Hawley said indicates broad support for online tests.
Harry Bull, superintendent of the Cherry Creek School District, said PARCC is a step in the right direction, but he falls short of endorsing it. He said students starting in eighth grade should take tests tied to college entrance exams, giving students a buy-in.
“I think originally, the belief with PARCC is that everyone would sign up, and across the country everyone in higher ed would say this is exactly what we’re looking for … and PARCC would become the new test to get into college,” Bull said. “It’s just not going to happen.”
State officials say many colleges and universities have committed to using PARCC for course placement but not admissions.
In the southwest Colorado town of Bayfield, Bruce Evans and his wife have been preparing their 9-year-old son for third-grade PARCC tests by doing extra homework and giving him practice tests online.
Evans is a career firefighter. He worked in Las Vegas for 25 years, ran a community college fire science and paramedic training program and said he retired early to raise his son in a “Leave It to Beaver” town.
He ended up fire chief of the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District and part of a Durango School District leadership training program.
Evans said he knows good-paying, blue-collar union jobs require critical thinking. Paramedics treating a 5-year-old with a seizure need to know how to reduce a fraction of medication based on weight, he said. Firefighters manning a hose need to account for friction loss in making sure the pounds per square inch of water are adequate.
But Evans said he can’t find qualified job candidates.
“It is raising the bar and it’s work. It’s hard,” Evans said of the new standards and tests. “But we are in a global economy now. These other countries are kicking our butts. It’s time educational leadership steps up. … In a global economy, there is not a 12th-place trophy.”
Advancing the learner
Angela Engel was part of the first group of Colorado teachers to give CSAP, the first Colorado tests adopted after No Child Left Behind.
A Douglas County teacher at the time, Engel said she was enthusiastic about a test that was supposed to be creative and measure critical thinking.
Then she watched her best fourth-grade reader sweating out an essay question asking him to respond to encountering aliens from a UFO that had landed on a hill. His score came back below proficiency, although she had a year’s worth of proof of his advanced writing.
Engel said PARCC is just more high-stakes testing — a one-size-fits-all failure that stifles creativity and shuns learning for the sake of learning.
“School ratings and teacher rankings have trivialized American education,” she said. “The fundamental purpose of public education is to advance society by advancing the learner.”
Opt-outs and finance
A yet-unknown number of parents are holding their kids out of the spring tests, made easier by a state Board of Education vote last month to not sanction districts or schools that fall short of required 95 percent student participation because of opt-outs or refusals.
In the Boulder Valley School District, an opt-out hot spot, more than eight in 10 Fairview High School students and nearly two-thirds of Boulder High students sat out PARCC, the district said.
On the other side of the spectrum, well-funded organizations have been backing the academic standards and assessments since before the anti-testing movement gained steam and have intensified efforts.
More than $200,000 in grants from the Denver-based Rose Community Foundation and Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have gone to a coalition called Climb Higher Colorado, advocacy groups and DPS for educational efforts mostly targeting low-income and minority families, officials say.
“PARCC is the easy scapegoat to go after,” said Janet Lopez, a senior program officer at Rose. “It’s a name, it’s associated with sort of a national agenda because more than one state is participating in it.”
Those involved in PARCC’s creation are urging patience.
“I try to think of PARCC as a long-term enterprise,” said Derek Briggs, a professor of quantitative methods and policy analysis at the University of Colorado at Boulder who sits on PARCC’s technical advisory committee. “This is sort of a first draft. What could they be if given the time and possibility to grow and evolve?”
Eric Gorski: 303-954-1971, egorski@denverpost.com or twitter.com/egorski
Colorado state assessments
20,000
Estimated hours more than 50 Colorado educators put into helping develop PARCC over the past five years
11
On average, hours PARCC and CMAS tests will take for a typical student to finish this spring — about the same amount of time as previous tests
$36.8 million
Cost to the state for this spring’s tests
$7.7 million About how much of that is covered by federal funds
$8.1 million
Estimated cost borne by districts to give the tests, not including staff time
$26.8 million
How much the state says it will pay vendor Pearson in 2014-15 for PARCC and CMAS testing
Sources: Colorado Department of Education; Augenblick Palaick & Associates study
