Flawed PARCC Test Claims ZERO Illinois High School Students Are Advanced

As if the PARCC test wasn't problematic enough with parents refusing to allow their kids to take it and states dropping the PARCC test like a bad habit. Now, with the recent setting of "cut scores," there seems to be even more reason to question the authenticity of PARCC. To begin, the secretive and obscure "PARCC Rangers" have met and set scores, but failed to reveal what they are. And, in a blow to state-by-state comparability, it appears PARCC may have different results and ratings for different states - which makes no sense whatsover. As the scores have come out, the story worsens and the plot thickens. This dubious nature is nowhere more clear than in Illinois.

http://www.isbe.net/assessment/pdfs/parcc/parcc-prelim-state-lvl-results.pdf

According to the data released this week by the Illinois State Board of Education, the percentage of Illinois High School students who "exceed expectations" in math is ... wait for it ... ZERO. That's right - according to the geniuses behind the PARCC assessment, in the fifth most populous state in the country, with some of the top schools in the country like New Trier HS in Willmette and Stevenson HS in Lincolnshire, there are zero advanced students. Zero! That is patently absurd, and such results only expose the flawed and inauthentic nature of PARCC, its methodology, and its value as a measure of student achievement.

This is not simply a matter of Arne Duncan's nasty, misguided, and pathetic claim that Common Core simply exposes to suburban white mothers that their children "aren't quite as smart as they thought." That alone was a desperate attempt to bully and manipulate parents and media. No, this is far worse. This is a calculated and deliberate disaster of educational malpractice. Many of these "proficient at best" students in Illinois will gain admission to the top colleges in the world, and they will achieve incredible results as doctors and scientists and engineers and coders and innovators and mathematicians and researchers ... and more.

I cannot imagine why any parent would ever subject their children to being "judged" by such an egregiously flawed measure.