Illinois schools got results for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers -- or PARCC -- test late last week. That’s the standardized test aligned with the Common Core. Scores were low across the state.
Tony Smith is the state superintendent of schools. He says that’s because it’s not comparing students to each other, but to what they should know.
“It’s definitely a new paradigm, right?” Smith said. “Before we asked: Do kids know all of what the content behind them is, and we asked the question in terms of a percent of where kids are in relation to other kids about how much they should know at that grade level. Ask an entirely new question: How ready are kids for what’s coming?”
Smith put it into perspective by referring to yet another set of standardized tests.
“Honestly, the data more closely aligns to some of the national assessments,” Smith said. “If you’ve been looking at some of the national trend and those data, um, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, it’s not that shocking.”
Illinois was one of 11 states nationwide to administer the new test.
Copyright 2015 WNIJ Northern Public Radio
