PARCC Assessment Not Being Considered for Elimination

Letter to the editor written by CCSD 181 superintendent Don White.

Dear Community Members,

Assessments are of critical importance for continuous improvement. They are used to support students by informing instruction, guiding differentiation, and measuring growth. We have built a robust assessment framework to meet the daily needs of teachers in the classroom, and to guide long-term decision making about curriculum and instruction across the District.

Our Assessment Framework must balance the need for data with sensitivity to the time that is taken from teaching and learning. We are currently considering which of our current assessments could be eliminated. The PARCC Assessment is not being considered for elimination, as it is state-mandated, having replaced the previous Illinois Standards Assessment Test (ISAT).

On September 16, the Illinois State Board of Education released “the initial, and still incomplete” statewide results from the PARCC tests taken in the 2014-15 school year.

According to State Superintendent Dr. Tony Smith, district and student level data may not be shared until later this fall. We will post a link to the data on our website as it is made available (www.d181.org > Learning > Assessment > PARCC). On this same webpage, we have posted an important memo outlining changes to PARCC that have been announced for 2015-16.

We must be cautious not to overreact to any one set of data and should focus on how it can inform and ultimately improve our work. The State Superintendent said it well when he offered that “the initial [PARCC] results are simply a new baseline from which we can move forward.”

Sincerely,
Don White, Ph.D.
CCSD 181 Superintendent