10% Of Verona Students Refuse To Take PARCC

Today was the first day of testing in Verona for the new statewide standardized test prepared by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), and 10% of Verona’s students refused to take it.

According to Verona’s superintendent of schools, Rui Dionisio, a total of 221 students submitted letters that they would not be taking the test, out of Verona’s 2,212 enrollment. While that is 10% of total enrollment, students in kindergarten, first, second and twelfth grades are not taking the PARCC this year, putting the actual refusal rate at perhaps as much as 15%. The refusals by school were:

• Verona High School: 89
• H.B. Whitehorne Middle School: 89
• Brookdale Avenue School: 4
• F.N. Brown School: 15
• Forest Avenue School: 8
• Laning Avenue School: 17

Dionisio was sanguine despite the high refusal rate. “Today was a very smooth and productive first day of the PARCC administration,” he wrote in an email. “Our students were positive, prepared, and ready to test; our staff was extremely supportive and handled the new testing procedures perfectly; the new wireless network worked great; and the Chromebooks were seamless.”

The high refusal rate is something of a victory for Verona Cares About Schools, a group of parents who disseminated information about the test and a form refusal letter that the Verona Board of Education would accept from families who were opting out.

“More than 10% of Verona students in testing grades refused the PARCC today,” said Beth O’Donnell-Fischer, one of the creators of Verona Cares About School. “Through these refusals district parents have shown their lack confidence in the ability of Pearson to create a fair assessment and have expressed their displeasure with the massive amount of test prep, lost instructional time, data collection and the Common Core curriculum on which it’s all based. Some students commented today that it was easier than expected. One cannot help but wonder if there was last minute manipulation of the PARCC test’s ‘rigor’ in reaction to the anti-PARCC movement. Interestingly, when the first Common Core aligned tests were administered in New York state in 2013, students expressed similar opinions on the level of difficulty. When the test scores came in, over 70% of students had failed. We won’t find out our scores until 2016 and Pearson still has not determined what the cut scores for the PARCC will be.”

The BOE has been openly critical of the test for many months. “The only people more stressed out than parents and teachers about the PARCC are school boards because we are being forced to do something that we don’t believe is sensible, rational or thought out,” BOE President John Quattrocchi said in January. Quattrocchi predicted then that the PARCC, in its current form, will “collapse”.

The BOE agreed in February that students who came to school but refused to take the test could sit in the testing room and read a book but would not be punished for their refusal to take the test. According to anecdotal reports on the Verona Cares About Schools Facebook page, some Verona High School students were able to attend classes going on in other parts of the building.

It is unclear what repercussions from the high refusal rate might await Verona. The BOE repeatedly told parents that it could not refuse to administer the test without risking a loss of state aid or other penalties. So-called Title I schools–those in economically disadvantaged areas that get funding from the federal Department of Education–could suffer penalties if a school does not have 95% test participation for two years in a row, but Verona is not a Title I school.

PARCC testing continues through next week.