Students in Monticello, Benton, Bentonville and a handful of other Arkansas high schools are among the first in the state and nation this month to take the new exams that are replacing Arkansas' End-of-Course and Benchmark tests.
The new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exams, commonly called PARCC exams, are based on a common set of math and literacy standards that have been adopted by most of the 50 states since 2010. A consortium of about a dozen states -- including Arkansas -- is developing and administering exams based on what many educators view to be the more challenging standards and resulting curriculum.
A few Arkansas high schools, some of which feature a college-style block schedule in which students take what are normally two-semester courses in just one semester, are giving the first of the exams. Students are taking the new tests as the semester and the courses draw to a close.
"They are just troupers," Hope Allen, the Arkansas Department of Education's director of assessment, said about the 19 school districts and charter schools that are initiating the testing program. "They are doing such a good job."
The students are taking one or more exams in ninth-through-11th-grade English-language arts/literacy and/or in algebra I, II and geometry, Allen said.
Unlike Arkansas' old Benchmark and End-of-Course tests, the PARCC testing is done in two parts. The "performance-based assessments" in the different subjects must be given within a Dec. 1-19 window. That is to be followed by the "end-of-the-year assessments" in the same subjects given between Dec. 15 and Jan. 16.
Schools have the flexibility to schedule the actual testing times within each testing window, Allen said.
Allen didn't have a number for the Arkansas test-takers but said it is small. Nationally, more than 30,000 students in six states -- Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Mississippi, Ohio and Rhode Island -- are taking paper-and-pencil versions of the exams this month.
Most of the new test-taking will occur in the spring and most of it will be online. The online versions were not ready for this month, Allen said.
Beginning in March and going through early May, more than 5 million students in grades three through 11 are expected to take the PARCC performance-based and then the end-of-the-year tests. Well over half of those students -- including a majority of Arkansas test-takers -- will take the tests using desktop and laptop computers.
At Monticello High School, about 340 students -- fewer than half of the school's enrollment -- are on the front wave of testing, starting the exams last week. The test in ninth-grade English was Wednesday. The algebra I test was Thursday and the test in 10th-grade English was Friday. The geometry test will be Monday.
"It's going well," Principal Judy Holaway said Friday afternoon. "The kids are taking their time and it really seems they are trying to do well with it."
Once the Monticello students finish this round of testing, they will take the end-of-the-year tests in the same subjects in early January. In lieu of the PARCC test in 11th-grade English and the PARCC test in algebra II, the Monticello 11th-graders will take the ACT college entrance exam at district expense, an option that the state Education Department has extended to all school districts.
"We have a great group of teachers and kids here," Holaway said. "They are pioneers and soldiers going right through it. We are anxiously waiting to see how the data comes out."
The results from the new exams will not be released until after all the testing is done for this 2014-15 school year and passing scores are established by the PARCC leaders. That is expected to occur in the summer.
A much smaller contingent of students in the Bentonville School District will be taking the PARCC exams in algebra and geometry in the coming weeks, Karen Morton, Bentonville's director of testing, said Friday.
Bentonville High does not use the four-by-four block schedule used in Monticello and some of the other districts, so most Bentonville students will take the exams in the spring. The exception is the district's alternative-education program, which does have a nontraditional schedule, resulting in the December testing for about 20 students.
"We are giving the algebra I and geometry test next Tuesday to a handful students in our alternative learning school," Morton said Friday. "We also have some kids who took an algebra or geometry class online or in summer school."
That testing will be followed with the end-of-the-year assessment the next Tuesday, Dec. 16, meaning the students will be done with the PARCC testing before their holiday break.
Bentonville opted to put off giving the state-required exams in English-language arts/literacy so that alternative-school students can benefit from more instruction in their English, science and social studies courses -- all of which are meant to provide preparation for the PARCC exams in English/language arts.
The Bentonville district also is opting out of the 11th-grade English-language arts/literacy exam and algebra II tests in favor of giving the ACT exam to all high school juniors.
Benton High School uses the block schedule and last week just more than 100 students were tested in geometry, Mark McDougal, assistant superintendent for career and technical education and academic support services, said Friday. The test was given over two days, one class period per day. The students will take the end-of-the-year assessment in geometry in early January.
"It went very well. Our test administrators did a great job. Our kids did a great job," McDougal said.
Benton district leaders decided to push the other state-required tests in algebra and English-language arts/literacy to the spring, McDougal said, to give students a better chance of success as a result of becoming more mature and benefiting from schoolwide initiatives.
Other districts and charter schools administering the new exams this month are Riverview, Nashville, Mountain Home, Glen Rose, Siloam Springs, Farmington, Gentry, Russellville, Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville, Lakeside, Vilonia, Drew Central, Valley Springs, SIATech High Charter in Little Rock, Dardanelle and Rogers, according to information from the state Education Department.
McDougal and others said they are looking forward to the online version of the test for a variety of reasons -- not the least of which is that there will be less packing and shipping to do.
In Arkansas, the plan is for most districts to give the online tests in the spring. Sixteen districts and charter schools -- out of the 236 traditional school districts and 18 open-enrollment charter schools -- have received waivers from giving the spring tests online. Those districts, which include Little Rock, Bentonville, Pine Bluff and Texarkana, will give paper versions of the test in this first year.
"I'm looking forward to not boxing up testing," McDougal of Benton said Friday about the online tests. "There's a lot of work involved in that. The digital version requires less effort in terms of packing up and sending."
SundayMonday on 12/07/2014