Mississippi to use PARCC scoring tiers on test results, reducing students

While the state transitions to the PARCC tests, officials are accepting level 3 – defined as approaching expectations – as a passing score but students will eventually be required to meet the higher levels.

It also said “roughly” 5,500 fewer students will have to retake the ELA exam this year than last year and 1,600 fewer will have to retake the math exam, though that is compared to the old exam.

The New Jersey Education Association has rightly warned of a preconceived desire to label a certain percentage of students as failures in an attempt to buttress Christie’s anti-teacher, anti-public school agenda.

Level 1: Student did not meet expectations. A four meant “met expectations”. Only 27 percent of freshman met that mark. Our students did not get worse, and our teachers are not teaching poorly.

“We’re asking how they’re finishing and they’re finishing stronger so that’s huge”, Skandera said. It’s a new type of learning created to promote critical thinking in the classroom.

High school test results were the first to be released.

“I don’t think that we’re seeing the awful downturn that everyone seemed so concerned about, and we are pleasantly surprised that that’s not the case”, said Las Cruces Public Schools Superintendent Stan Rounds. The previous standardized test the state used gave students a general assessment based on what grade they were in. “Taking those kids who scored threes and moving them into fours and fives will be a real instructional focus for us”.

PED said students who did not receive a score of 3 or higher will have to retake the exams sometime next month, though PED Secretary Hanna Skandera did not specify exactly when.

“Our goal as a state is to make sure that students are prepared for success in life”, Skandera said. Parents and students will learn individual scores November. 2.

Despite the outrage, these scores aren’t the absolute in deciding if a student will graduate.

“As we dive into these numbers and begin parsing them, we’re going to begin at the junior level”, said Rounds, referring to eleventh-grade students. “Let’s get honest about where we are, and when we know where we are, we can do something about it”.

KOB has also reached out to Albuquerque Public Schools. “Under the Standards Based Assessments, or SBA, 56.5 percent were proficient in English in 2014”.

In English, about 63 percent of high school juniors met or exceeded expectations.

As for the continued reduction of testing time, the release says state-mandating testing time had declined by an average of 2.5 hours from 2010 to 2015. That will change again for the class of 2018, when students can use a composite score of their math and ELA scores to graduate.

The district told News 13 it’s pleased with the results, but said there is room for improvement.