Across the nation, students are taking the PARCC assessments (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College), new standardized tests that will be used, eventually, in all grades, K-12. This test cycle measures student performance in Mathematics and English 10.

According to the PARCC website, each online test costs approximately $25 per student, which seems reasonable, but overall federal spending is over $350 million. Each test has two parts, the Performance-Based Assessment (PBA) and the End of Year Assessment (EOY). The first part was administered in December and the second will be administered in January.

Sophomore Lily Johnson, who took the Algebra 1 PARCC, compared the test to other standardized exams. “It wasn’t necessarily the hardest. It was just the most confusing.”

The winter exam was paper and pencil. Future tests will be online. A Washington Post article estimate the test will cost Maryland schools over $100 million to build the technology infrastructure.

Johnson also believes knowing what material would be tested prior to the exam would have helped her better prepare.

Since this was the first administration, students and teachers did not fully know what content would be tested. Sabrina Barthel, a sophomore who took the English PARCC, also thought that students should have some prior knowledge of what would be tested.

“I think that if they’re going to test us on something, they should tell the teachers ahead of time so they can plan lessons to teach,” says Barthel.

Damon Norko, an English teacher who gave the 10th grade PARCC exam, explains, “It’s not something you can really study for… You can’t memorize stuff for the PARCC. It’s all about practicing writing and building those skills, like athletes doing reps to build muscle.”

Norko says that another advantage to the test is that they are given during the class period (as opposed to moving groups of students to a designated testing area), which avoids creating disruptions to the students’ regular school day.

Natalie Rebetsky’s journalism class took the online practice PARCC exam to learn more about the test. During that time,  Erik Chapman explored the seventh grade math practice PARCC test, a class for which he is a student service learner at in West Frederick Middle School.

He said, “This is silly. I can’t possibly imagine how my seventh grade class will be prepared to take this test.”

There have been new challenges when it comes to introducing the PARCC to schools. Cheryl Novotny, the Testing Coordinator, says, “Administrators and staff have had to learn new guidelines and policies,” that are different from previous testing systems.

Novotny says she has gotten mixed responses from both teachers and students. “From teachers, there has been some concern because they have not had experience with the tests prior to this semester.” She says most students “seem to prefer taking one unit per day during their normal class time.”