Montclair School District Releases Final PARCC Refusal Totals

Are you a parent in the Montclair school district? There’s a two in five chance that your child didn’t take the PARCC test last month.

After a facing criticism about transparency, the Montclair School District released the final numbers of students who refused to take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam (PARCC) in March.

According to the district’s updated totals, a whopping 42.6 percent of Montclair’s students refused to take the controversial standardized test, which is intended to align with the Common Core State Standards.

The opt-out totals were most pronounced at Montclair High School, where 68 percent of students refused to take the test. In contrast, at the low end of the scale, only 7.5 percent of students at Watchung Elementary School chose to opt-out of the PARCC.

Overall, 1,970 students out of 4,623 refused to take the test. [See the district’s chart here]

Other totals included:

• Bradford – 16.1 percent
• Bullock – 43.5 percent
• Edgemont – 40.8 percent
• Hillside – 25.9 percent
• Northeast – 15.6 percent
• Glenfield – 29.3 percent
• Mount Hebron – 37.9 percent
• Renaissance – 54.1 percent

Montclair’s students joined many others across the region who have chosen to participate in the decentralized “Opt Out” movement. [See related Patch article here]

Send Montclair news tips and press releases to eric.kiefer@patch.com