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Illinois scraps controversial PARCC test infavor of shorter exam with new name

By KATE THAYERCHICAGO TRIBUNE

MAR 06, 2019 | 7:33 AM

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Fourth-grader Derek Burian practices before taking the Illinois Assessment of Readiness testwith teacher Selena Landa at Lakewood Falls Elementary School in Plain!eld on Feb. 28, 2019.The Illinois Assessment of Readiness test replaces the controversial PARCC test. (ZbigniewBzdak/Chicago Tribune)

Students in third through eighth grades across the state will begintaking a new standardized test this month, leaving behind thewidely panned PARCC test.

Yet this year’s new test, called the Illinois Assessment of Readinessor IAR, differs from PARCC only in length; it’s about a thirdshorter, said Jackie Matthews, spokeswoman for the Illinois StateBoard of Education.

inRead invented by Teads

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The new name, however, reflects more sweeping changes on thehorizon, Matthews said, designed in part to address the manycriticisms of PARCC, which stands for Partnership for Assessmentof Readiness for College and Careers. The changes include aquicker turnaround on results, a computer adaptive test modelcustomized to each student, more locally created questions andadjustments to how the test is translated for students whose native

language is not English. Those changes will be rolled out startingnext year through 2022, she said.

Scroll down to see sample English and math questionsfrom the IAR test »

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“The first year is the first phase of improvements,” Matthews said,explaining that local administrators’ criticisms were taken intoaccount in designing the new test. “Having a new name allows us toreflect those values.”

The PARCC test, designed to assess math and reading skills,launched in 2015 and was met with controversy. Schooladministrators and parents alike complained that the test’s longhours took away from instruction time and argued that the test wastoo difficult. This led to a record number of parents opting to keeptheir students from taking the test, which produced dismal scoresfor the state.

Chicago Public Schools threatened to pull out of PARCC testing butrelented to avoid losing federal funds. While PARCC was eventuallypulled from high schools in favor of an SAT college entrance exampaid for by the state, it remained at the elementary and middleschool levels. In 2016, a group of suburban superintendents fromNorth Shore districts wrote a letter urging the state to stoprequiring the test in the lower levels.

Amid the pushback, ISBE officials announced last year that theywould address the concerns about PARCC.

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Local administrators say they’re glad to hear of the forthcomingchanges but remain guarded as they await them. And some alsoreserved judgment on whether the IAR will be a good measurement

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of state standards, known as Common Core, as well as a useful toolfor districts and parents.

“We won’t know until we see it,” said Glenn Wood, assistantsuperintendent of curriculum and instruction in PlainfieldCommunity Consolidated School District 202. “We’re hoping thetest is more aligned to the standards than PARCC.”

Fourth-grade student Amy Mendez, center, practices before taking the Illinois Assessment ofReadiness test at Lakewood Falls Elementary School in Plain!eld on Feb. 28, 2019. (ZbigniewBzdak/Chicago Tribune)

Most administrators welcome the shorter exam. This year’s EnglishLanguage Arts and Literacy portion of the test will be 2½ hours forthird-graders this year, down from three hours and 45 minutespreviously, and three hours for all other grades, down from 4½.The math portion will reduce to three hours for all grades, downfrom four to 4½ hours, according to ISBE. Students do not take the

test all at once, and ISBE leaves it up to schools to decide how tobreak up the test.

“We certainly appreciate that it’s shorter,” said Paul Goldberg,assistant superintendent of district improvement in Schaumburg-based School District 54. “That’s a step in the right direction.”

Goldberg said he thought the test could even be shortened further,pointing out that “kids sit one time for the ACT to get into college.”

As the state has changed its test over the years, and will continue toupdate IAR over the next three, it will be difficult foradministrators to compare scores from year to year, said Wood in

Plainfield. “We hope this IAR will stay around a little bit, so we cando that.”

The first year the state administered PARCC, the results were lowerthan any state test since 2001. At the elementary level, only about aquarter to a third of elementary and middle school students met orexceeded expectations — the terminology used to indicate passing— on the math exams, and 33 to 38 percent passed the languagearts portion. High school scores were even lower throughout thestate, with even traditionally high-performing districts seeing lessthan half of their students with passing scores. While scoresimproved some over the years, school administrators and parentscontinued to complain the test wasn’t measuring what was beingtaught in the Common Core curriculum.

One adjustment for students taking the upcoming IAR test could bethe move — scheduled for 2021 — to a computer adaptive test,Wood said, which customizes the exam to each student. The test,taken on a computer, adjusts the difficulty of each question to fitthe student’s progress. If a student answers correctly, the difficultyincreases; if the student gives a wrong answer, an easier questionfollows.

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More than 90 percent of schools already administer standardizedtests on a computer, rather than the historical bubble fill-ins onpaper, Matthews said, and several local administrators said theirstudents also are used to a computer adaptive model for other teststhey take throughout the year. To help prepare for the change,ISBE has set out to ensure all schools administer their test viacomputer by next year, Matthews said, ahead of the move toadaptive testing, and will offer grants to some schools to be able todo so.

Laura Hill, director of assessment and accountability in Elgin-based School District U-46, said the computer adaptive model willbe “a better assessment for our students.”

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Hill also is looking forward to seeing results more quickly, whichISBE says it is working toward for next year’s test.

“Everything has to be really timely for the teacher,” she said. Ifscores lag, “we can’t do anything with the results.”

kthayer@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @knthayer

3rd Grade English3rd Grade English

(Illinois Assessment of Readiness)

3rd Grade Math3rd Grade Math

(Illinois Assessment of Readiness)

5th Grade English5th Grade English

(Illinois Assessment of Readiness)

5th Grade Math5th Grade Math

(Illinois Assessment of Readiness)

7th Grade English7th Grade English

(Illinois Assessment of Readiness)

7th Grade Math7th Grade Math

(Illinois Assessment of Readiness)

PARCC pushback prompts Illinois to remake controversial test for 3rd-8th

graders »

Most Illinois schools improve on PARCC tests, but work still to be done »

Most Illinois students didn't pass PARCC exams in 2017 »

Topics: Colleges and Universities, Education

Kate Thayer

Features reporter Kate Thayer writes about health, trends or anything thatmakes a good story. Previously, Kate had a long stint in Metro after arrivingat the Tribune in 2010. She's a graduate of the University of Iowa and theUniversity of Illinois at Springfield’s Public Affairs Reporting graduateprogram and is the mother of curious twin girls.

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