PARCC Close To Becoming N.J. Graduation Requirement

New Jersey is close requiring that students pass PARCC exams so they can graduate.

The state Board of Education on Wednesday eliminated students' ability to opt-out of PARCC state math and English tests, pushing N.J. one step closer to becoming only the second state in the nation to require students in grades 3 through 11 to take the controversial exams in order to graduate.

The state BOE, without opposition, voted to finalize graduation requirements that, starting in 2017, would require the Class of 2020 to take all eligible end-of-course exams of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC).

The board's actions follow recommendations from a panel, formed by Gov. Chris Christie, suggesting that the state require high school students to pass the PARCC tests beginning in 2021.

The state BOE will be holding an open public comment session on Wednesday, May 4 at 2 p.m., and PARCC opponents are encouraging people to attend, saying "they should not go forward with this plan to make PARCC a graduation requirement."

"We will let you know when you can sign up to testify," Save Our Schools New Jersey, a non-profit group that opposes PARCC, said on its website.

Mark Biedron, president of the state Board of Education, told nj.com that the state will have work to do to improve PARCC scores, but he believes the graduation requirements are an attainable goal for students.

The PARCC tests have been a source of controversy for more than a year. David Hespe, New Jersey’s commissioner of education, said two years ago that more than half of New Jersey’s kids are not ready for college based on the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test.

Last year, Patch put together top-10 result lists for each grade (high school math was broken into Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II), as well as links to all the scores for all the districts (click here for more).

Many districts in New Jersey performed in the ”Level 4” and ”Level 5” areas, which is between the scores of 750 and 850, the latter being a perfect score.

NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer said NJEA and its partners “have expressed deep concerns about the invasive nature of standardized testing in our public schools and have questioned the validity of PARCC and the use of such tests for high-stakes decisions regarding students and teachers.”

“Policymakers have responded by eliminating one entire testing window, dramatically reducing the disruption of PARCC in our schools, and by reducing the impact of test scores on teacher evaluations to 10 percent,” he said. “They have also delayed the use of PARCC tests as a graduation requirement. We call on the Department of Education to go further in each of these areas to reduce the intrusion of the test and to remove its high-stakes impact.