Local school administrators, currently in the midst of implementing a new set of education standards and curricula in their districts, still plan to move ahead with an upcoming computer-based testing phase even as a legislative intervention threatens to pull the plug.
Republican state lawmakers announced a pair of bills Tuesday aimed at delaying the implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the companion test, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, by up to four years, leaving school districts uncertain about the future of the new college preparedness education reforms.
“This year, we chose to implement Common Core in grades K-12, and we’ve been fairly pleased with the success,” Johnson City Schools Supervisor of Instruction and Communication Debra Bentley said. “We’re ready for the PARCC assessments next year, too, so it will be very interesting to see what does come out of the legislation.”
As part of the preparations for the new curriculum and testing, Johnson City sent hundreds of teachers for specialized training sessions, received shipments of new teaching materials and made more than $800,000 in technology and infrastructure upgrades.
Bentley said teachers and administrators have been pleased with the results they’ve seen so far in the district’s classrooms, brought in part by the critical thinking-driven lessons.
Like Bentley in Johnson City, Washington County Director of Schools Ron Dykes said his district has been gradually implementing Common Core over the past two years, and will be ready to administer the standardized PARCC testing in 2015.
What may become a problem in the smaller, more rural districts in the state, he said, is paying for the expensive computer equipment and networks needed for the sophisticated online test.
“Some school districts may not have the adequate technology structure to support the PARCC testing,” Dykes said. “I would be surprised if every district were to have the infrastructure in place in time to meet the set schedule.”
But Washington County is facing future funding issues related to Common Core’s instruction-intensive lesson plans.
“In this new process, there is a much higher focus on small group activity, which means more instructional personnel,” Dykes said. “The state’s resources are lacking when it comes to full implementation of Common Core, which is a concern of mine when you consider state Race to the Top funds are diminishing, which had been used to support Common Core. The programs can only be maintained through cutting or by realizing new revenue of some sort.”
Dykes said he doesn’t believe the proposed pause on the PARCC testing would be a bad thing, as long as legislators left in place the shared academic standards.
“I think there needs to be a national set of standards to which all students are held to make sure one state is not graduating students less prepared than others,” he said. “If each state can set its own standards without regard to the effect it’s going to have on their children being globally competitive, that could be a negative thing.”
State Sen. Rusty Crowe, R-Johnson City, said Tuesday that the subjective nature of the PARCC test concerned him, which may lead him to support the proposed bills.
“It will be an essay-type test. Even in math you have to write out how you came up with the answer,” Crowe said. “What I worry about is, the TCAP is multiple choice, it’s easy to grade accurately. With PARCC, it’s going to be difficult to grade thousands of tests subjectively.
“The testing and grading for it is contracted out, possibly to somebody in California,” he added. “If we’re going to spend millions on PARCC, why can’t we do part of it in our own state, maybe let the TBR handle it?”
Crowe said he has also heard objections from constituents regarding the possibility of using social data to characterize and analyze testing results and the appropriateness of some of the reading materials recommended for use with the Common Core curriculum.
Last week, the Senator joined more than a dozen of his peers in supporting a resolution aimed at “expressing Tennessee’s sovereignty over education standards and assessments” and opposing federal government intrusion into the state-run education system.
That resolution should come before the Senate Education Committee, of which Crowe is a member, in the early weeks of the legislative session.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative was created by a group of states’ governors and education commissioners seeking to write a uniform set of benchmarks to determine if students are adequately prepared to enter higher education or the work force.
The state Board of Education adopted the standards in 2010, a move that Crowe said was done “in a very stealthy manner.”
“That decision was made without consulting the legislature, which was very disappointing,” Crowe said. “For something of that magnitude to be put in place without debate, I think people would have appreciated some input coming from those they elected to represent them.”
from Johnson City Press Latest News Feed
To read more visit: http://bit.ly/1g07AW6
This share sponsored by East Coast Wings Johnson City
from Tumblr http://bit.ly/1hjrTKH
via This share sponsored by East Coast Wings Johnson City
No comments:
Post a Comment