New Jersey Will Stop Using PARCC Tests, Gov.-Elect Murphy Says

Gov.-elect Phil Murphy says he plans to follow through on his campaign promise to end the controversial PARCC test, and he took the first step in his plans to do so this past week.

Murphy, who will be sworn-in as governor at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, announced Friday that he appointed Asbury Park School District Superintendent Lamont Repollet to head the state Department of Education, and asked him "to end the failed experiment that has been PARCC testing."

Murphy said he wants Repollet to "create new, more effective and less class time-intrusive means for measuring student assessment" than PARCC, which began four years ago and effectively replaced NJ ASK as the universal standardized student test.

New Jersey Education Association President Marie Blistan told WHYY that she endorses the move.

“I definitely think that the entire testing system needs to be reviewed, and, absolutely, I question whether the PARCC test is the appropriate test to use in any way, shape, or form here,” she told WHYY.

Murphy words echo what he said on the campaign trail, when he told NJEA leaders during a conference that "I will eliminate PARCC."

It's not clear when Murphy plans to end the test, or if plans to substitute it with another standardized test. But he did suggest on the campaign trail that, perhaps, there will be no replacement. He wants to return to "student-centered" teaching.

"You know your students needs better than a test, period," he told the NJEA. "The era of high-stakes, high-stress standardized tests in New Jersey must end and I will see that it does."

The PARCC tests have been a source of controversy since they began. Many parents have chosen to have their children opt out of the test because they consider the form of testing unfair, and they've protested attempts to use it as a graduation requirement.

David Hespe, New Jersey's former commissioner of education, said four 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.

Read more: 2017 PARCC Scores Released For New Jersey High Schools: How Did Yours Do?

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