Hybrid PARCC and MCAS Test Coming: Education Officials Vote

The Massachusetts Board of Education voted 8-3 today, Nov. 17, to create a new hybrid assessment test for students that will combine parts of the MCAS test and parts of PARCC.

The plan by the state is for MCAS to be a requirement for high school students through the class of 2019.

All students will begin taking the new hybrid test in spring of 2017.

The vote comes just days after the state released PARCC results for 2015. Multiple districts throughout the state elected to administer PARCC in 2015 instead of MCAS. Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District continued with MCAS testing as per usual.

>>> Here’s how Hamilton-Wenham Regional students did on the MCAS test in 2015.

A smaller percentage of students earned “Meeting Expectation” on PARCC in 2015 than met MCAS’s “Proficiency” standard in the same testing year. According to the Boston Globe, statewide, 60 percent met expectations in English and 52 percent in math on PARCC, with a large range of achievement seen across the state.

With reporting by Susan Petroni