Maryland School Assessment Replacement Totals Up to 10 Hours

Students will be tested for up to 10 hours under the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness in College and Careers exams, which locally replaces the Maryland School Assessment.

In a layout of the PARCC Assessment released Wednesday, third-grade students would be tested for eight hours and 11th grade students for nearly 10 hours. Every grade level in between will also participate.

The computerized tests are part of the rigorous national Common Core State Standards curriculum. The performance-based component would run over five sessions—two for mathematics and three for English language arts/literacy, and the end of the year portion that would require four sessions—two for mathematics and two for English language arts/literacy.

The Maryland School Assessment tests for grades three to eight take approximately six hours over a four day span—two for mathematics and two for science. The high school assessments, which are subject-based, are taken after the completion of select courses and are approximately an hour long. 

A full breakdown of each PARCC Assessment session time amount for every grade can be found online.

According to the report, schools would have a maximum of 20 days per component to administer the tests to all students, though individual students would have to take both components over a combined five to nine days.

The performance-based section would take place approximately 75 percent of the way into the school year, and the end of the year component about 90 percent of the way in, the report states.

Baltimore County Public Schools is currently in the process of transitioning to Common Core, an initiative heavily championed by President Barack Obama. This school year, the administration is running a pilot program testing the curriculum at select schools across the district.

Common Core was created to provide consistent educational standards throughout the country in English language arts and mathematics for kindergarten through 12th grades, according to the initiative's website.

The county school system was closed Wednesday due to concerns about inclement weather, but Superintendent Dallas Dance did express concern about the testing time for the PARCC Assessment on his Twitter account.

"We need to have a serious discussion," Dance wrote.

See Also:

• Commissioner Rothschild Concerned State Standards will Turn Schools into 'Propaganda Institutes for Government'