Evesham parents to receive PARCC scores by end of November, early December
Evesham parents should know how their children scored on last school year’s Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test by the end of November or early December.
That was the latest news regarding the test and its scores as told by Evesham School District director of curriculum and instruction Danielle Magulick at the district’s board of education meeting on Oct. 22.
Although scores regarding how the state as a whole performed on the exams were released last week, Magulick said the scores for individual districts, schools and children would still be a few weeks away.
Magulick also outlined what the actual report of children’s scores will look like once its in parents hands and how they should read it.
For PARCC scores, there are a total of 850 points a child could score and five performance levels in which a child’s score could potentially fall.
This differs from the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK) test that students had taken in prior years that had three levels of scores ranging from partially proficient, proficient, and advanced proficient.
With PARCC, the five performance levels stretch from level 1 of “did not meet expectations,” to level 2 of “partially met expectations,” to level 3 of “approached expectations,” to level 4 of “met expectations” and finally to level 5 of “exceeded expectations.”
Magulick said with this being the first year of scores, the state has been noting that New Jersey students were expected to fall within the level 3 score, as opposed to the level 4–5 range of meeting or exceeding expectations.
Magulick said this is due to this being the first time students were taking the test, as well as it being more difficult than NJASK because NJASK assessed just recall, as opposed to PARCC that assesses recall in addition to the critical thinking of why students made a particular decision.
“It really did play out when you look at the numbers from the state, of course we don’t have our numbers yet, but we’ll see,” Magulick said.
Once parents receive their child’s individual score reports, parents will see at the top of the report the students’ grade and subject of the test the student took, and also included will be a color coded scale noting which of the five proficiency score levels that student earned.
The score report will also differ from NJASK in that it will also list scores the child’s school average, the district’s average, the state average and then a comparison to the scores of the other 11 states that took the PARCC exam last school year.
Another area of the report will break down each segment of a particular assessment, and will tell parents whether students in that segment were below expectations, nearly meeting expectations or meeting and or exceeding expectations.
For example, on the English Language Arts grade six test, parents would see how their student did in the sections of literary analysis, informational text, knowledge and use of language conventions, vocabulary and writing expression.
Finally, Magulick said the last part of the report on the backside would be details on how parents might be able to use the data to help their children, with explanations of the different levels and advice on talking to a child’s teachers or school.
Magulick also pointed toward the online resource of understandthescore.org, which she said was good website walk parents through with step-by-step instructions on how to read and understand the report.
Magulick said the district and parents should look at the PARCC scores as they would any other assessment at any other time as just one measure amongst a whole variety of measures.
“We’re not making decisions based on kids or practices based on just these assessments,” Magulick said. “We look at the whole picture, as we always have in the past.”
