By Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois is changing the standardized test offered to kids in elementary school and junior high, but some school leaders are wondering if the changes will fix the test’s biggest problem.
Illinois State Superintendent of Schools Tony Smith earlier this month said that the plan is to keep at least “an anchor set of PARCC items” when they get a new test provider. Hopefully sometime next year.
“Illinois will continue to use and build on the core features of PARCC that make it the highest quality accountability assessment available in the United States,” Smith said. “In particular, the complex writing tasks.”
The PARCC test is the only assessment test in the nation to “fully meet” all federal accountability requirements. But the test has been unpopular from the start.
PARCC is supposed to measure what students know and how they are learning. Instead, school leaders say the test takes a snapshot of student performance that can’t be used to help that student or change what is being taught in the classroom at that time.
Superintendents like LeRoy’s Gary Tipsord said even though he is required to offer the PARCC test, he can’t rely on it.
“If I, as an educator, know that the test that you’re going to sit and take today, I’m not going to get those results back till September or October. How much am I really investing in that? How relevant is that?” Tipsord said. “And if it isn’t, then why am I going to waste instructional time.”
The Illinois State Board of Education this week said it won’t know how quickly schools could expect the new test results until a new test provider is chosen.
But it’s not just a new PARCC provider that Illinois is looking for.
The State Board is also starting a conversation with schools about other ways to test or measure student performance. LeRoy schools are one of the districts in Illinois having that conversation.
Tipsord said his district already uses a different standardized test that he said gives better information on how students are doing.
He hopes that all schools in Illinois could, eventually, be able to do the same.
“Could we consider that the state of Illinois gets out of the business of testing, and the millions of dollars that those test cost. Give us a list of permissible assessment platforms, allow us to have the autonomy to [test],” Tipsord said. “And allow us to test in a way that makes sense to our kids. Where it informs instruction in a way that we can actually make a difference.”
Illinois’ new evidence-based school funding model includes $25 for each student to pay for local standardized testing. But Tipsord said that money is a long away away from being awarded to schools, so any local testing freedom is likely a long way away as well.
