NJ Education Report

It starts here:

Last Friday in Newark Public Schools, 3,500 students in fifty-six buildings participated in a PARCC simulation, a forty-five minute dress rehearsal for the new computer-based standardized tests that will debut in two weeks.  A fourth grader at Miller Street School said, “it was fun.” 

Meanwhile, NJEA is launching a super-PAC funded ad campaign, against PARCC tests because the new assessments are causing “widespread misery.”  Some suburban parents wax indignant over “toxic tests” because, say their spokespeople at Save Our Schools-NJ, PARCC “punishes schools and destabilizes communities.” State legislators debate “opt-out” bills that gut data-infused teacher tenure reform. Suburban school boards pass anti-PARCC resolutions. 

But the kids are alright. It’s the adults who are apoplectic. This disparate response to computer-based tests reflects a generational divide that informs some of the animus towards PARCC, particularly fear of technology and data.

Read the rest here.