By Kai-Lou Yue
Business Manager

This year in the spring of 2014, Massachusetts is requiring some public schools to hold field testing for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a test that will likely replace the MCAS in the state. If all goes as planned, in 2015, Massachusetts schools will have a choice for whether they want to use the PARCC or the MCAS, and in 2016, all schools will be required to be using PARCC as the statewide test.

Although the reasoning behind the switch is so that the test complies with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), I believe the change is unnecessary.

First of all, the MCAS is already considered to be among the tests on the harder end of spectrum of state tests, and students in the Westford Public School system generally achieve high marks on it. We do not have an easy test with low standards; if we did, then changing tests would be a good idea in order to remedy the unfairness in test difficulty between MA and other states. However, we do not have that issue.

Also, using the PARCC test starting in either 2015 or 2016 could prove to be difficult and stress-inducing for students. If Westford decides to use the new test in 2015, then the current freshmen and every grade below will be forced to take the PARCC with no prior knowledge of the test’s content. This would be stressful for students in high school who will need to pass the test as a graduation requirement.

In addition to this, the way the PARCC test is administered is slightly differently than the MCAS. For example, a section of the future test is internet based, meaning students will need to have an internet connected device to access the online questions.

This raises a few issues. Most prominently, if each student needs a device to take the test, the school may have to obtain more equipment such as iPads, notebooks, or laptops, by buying, leasing, or renting enough electronics for an entire grade to test at the same time. This would be an exceedingly expensive course of action simply to comply with a statewide test, and a slightly ridiculous way to spend thousands of dollars.

Another related issue is that some schools, including Westford Academy have extremely limited bandwidth, a problem particularly evident when multiple students are using the computers simultaneously. With this issue, it would be impossible to hold a test with several hundred students using internet connected devices during the same time period, unless the bandwidth is increased.

In an attempt to cut the cost of new technology, administering students the test at different times and locations could be an acceptable idea. However, on the other hand, it would be simple for students to share and compare answers.

Overall, I believe that replacing the MCAS with the PARCC test is unnecessary, and that the state should focus on schools that are not performing to the level of Westford Academy on the MCAS, or have schools’ curriculums that do not comply with the CCSS.