Months after students last school year took the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers standardized test, the Mt. Laurel School District was able to release scores at the Dec. 15 Board of Education meeting.
PARCC differed from the state’s former standardized New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge test in that students took the PARCC test entirely on computers instead of using pencils and papers as they did with NJASK.
Students in grades three through 11 were tested in the areas of English language arts literacy and mathematics, and their scores on the exam placed them on one of five PARCC scoring levels.
Mt. Laurel Schools Interim Superintendent Sharon Vitella explained that anything in levels four and five on PARCC is equivalent to the old standard of proficiency on NJASK, but it was important to keep in mind that, as this was the first year PARCC was administered, any information was baseline data.
“We’re going to need several years of data before we really start drawing any long-term stories from this, but we’re using the data now,” Vitella said.
Vitella outlined the Mt. Laurel scores as compared to those of other New Jersey students, as well as to the whole of the 14 states that administered PARCC.
For grades three and four, English language arts literacy and mathematics scores at Countryside, Fleetwood, Parkway and Springville elementary schools, and for grades five and six English language arts literacy and mathematics scores at Hartford School, each school met or exceeded the percentages of PARCC and state students scoring equal to level four or greater.
For Hillside Elementary School, grades three and four English language arts literacy and mathematics scores met or exceeded the percentages of PARCC students scoring equal to level four or greater.
Grades three and four English language arts literacy scores at Hillside also exceeded the state percentage, as did grade four mathematics. However, grade three Hillside mathematics scores did not exceed the state scores.
For Larchmont Elementary School, grades three and four English language arts literacy scores met or exceeded the percentages of PARCC and state students scoring equal to level four or greater.
Grades three and four math scores met or exceeded the percentages of PARCC, but did not meet or exceed the state.
Vitella noted that with the PARCC exam, the district now has access to the test and the answer key after students take the exam, so it allows the district to try to identify why a particular grade at a particular school might have had trouble with a certain subject.
“One of the things they’re doing again is sharing the questions with the students, they’re making packets for the students, and they’re really trying to get feedback from the students,” Vitella said.
For Harrington Middle School, grades seven and eight English language arts literacy scores met or exceeded the percentages of PARCC scores equal to level four or greater, but those scores did not meet the state percentages.
Vitella said the literacy scores are broken into reading and writing, and while in reading Harrington students met or exceeded the percentages of PARCC and state students scoring equal to level four or greater, students didn’t do well with writing.
Vitella said the district had already been thinking about updating the school’s writing program, and she also said teachers noticed students’ written responses were rather brief on the tests.
Because of that, Vitella said maybe students didn’t understand what a written response needed to look like on the computer screen, as opposed to what they were used to with pencil and paper tests in years past.
“As we look at the state test and go through the answer key and do this with teachers and students, we’re going to be able to pull out important information like that and make sure we’re including it in our instruction,” Vitella said.
For Harrington Middle School seventh-grade mathematics, scores met or exceeded the percentages of PARCC scores equal to level four or greater, but did not exceed state scores.
For Harrington Middle School eighth-grade mathematics, scores did not meet or exceed the percentages of PARCC or state scores equal to level four or greater.
However, Vitella noted that across the state, eighth-grade math scores were artificially depressed because some students in eighth grade take high school level algebra I and geometry courses, and so they took different math tests during the PARCC exams
In Mt. Laurel, the number of grade eight students taking those different tests was nearly 25 percent, and their scores were significantly higher than the PARCC and state percentages equal to level or greater.
“Our upper-level students are doing exceptionally well both compared to the PARCC percentages and New Jersey averages,” she said.
Regarding Harrington overall, Vitella said while she was not satisfied with scores at the school, the school presented interesting challenges and opportunities.
She also noted that about 12 percent of students at Harrington chose not to participate in PARCC, which also had an effect on the data.
“I’ve met with the Harrington administrative staff, and what we’re really doing now is beginning to generate questions and then come up with a plan to how we’re going to get answers,” Vitella said.
