Over 10 percent of CPS students skipped PARCC test

Last spring, a new standardized test was met with loud calls in Chicago to skip it and with potential legislation in Springfield to consider granting parents permission to do so.

Some parents and teachers decried the PARCC test saying it wasn’t ready, it took too much time away from classroom learning, it was one among many tests given to Chicago Public Schools students.

New data released by the state this week shows that in the end, about 11 percent of eligible Chicago Public Schools students or tens of thousands of kids skipped PARCC — the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

Many of the highest opt-out rates happened at North Side schools, but all parts of the city had schools with a 50 percent or lower participation rate in the lengthy, in-depth PARCC test that seeks to measure critical thinking.

Statewide, less than 5 percent of students didn’t test, far below states like New York that strongly opposed PARCC.

Of Chicago’s 23 schools with less than half their students taking PARCC, 14 of them were high schools.

In fact, some of the lowest rates were at four selective enrollment high schools, which require competitive testing to get in. Lindblom Math and Science Academy High School tested just 8.5 percent of eligible students in English — the lowest citywide. Northside College Prep tested 17 percent, Lane Tech High School 22 percent and Whitney Young Magnet High School about 39 percent, according to data released this week by the Illinois State Board of Education.

“It’s not just testing backlash” in high schools, said Megan Vidis of Advance Illinois, which championed PARCC. “There were very specific reasons about why high schoolers didn’t take it.”

The March and May testing windows for PARCC, which carries no consequences, coincided with tests that did count. The test took around 10 hours per student, and demanded in-depth answers to questions that included writing essays and explaining responses.

Many Advanced Placement exams were given around the same time, and scoring well on those saves money on college credits. And last year, CPS was still required to give a separate standardized test to evaluate teachers and rate schools.

That accusation of double testing led many parents to oppose PARCC.

Rates at schools like Blaine Elementary School, whose PTA organized an opt-out, was no surprise to Cassie Creswell of the More Than A Score group that informed parents about their testing rights. But then she was pleased by “places where we don’t know anyone there and they still had a huge opt out.”

“There’s definitely some really high percentage children-of-color, high low-income schools that certainly bucked the trend of what you hear in the media (about) wealthy kids,” Creswell said.

“Once parents are informed, once children are informed, if it’s not a high-stakes test for them individually, (they wonder), ‘Why are we spending so much time on this, I don’t want to take this.’”

ISBE said about 4,000 CPS students were coded as refusing the test; another 15,000 were absent. Creswell questioned the high absences during the weeks-long testing windows, saying the codes had to be changed by hand from “absent” to “refused” and not all schools bothered.

Kelly High School, a neighborhood school on the Southwest Side, only had about 21 percent take English tests and just 15 percent take math. Kelly’s student population is 80 percent Hispanic.

Teacher Carolyn Brown said that faculty and staff “were really intentional about giving honest and accurate information about the test and not using some of the bully tactics we saw at other schools.”

Brown monitored classrooms where students who refused the test were sent to study.

“Many said they didn’t see a point to it,” she said. “They knew it didn’t have any direct consequences for them. … They were overwhelmed with the idea of another test that they didn’t see had any value for them.”

In Chicago, white students sat out the tests in English and math in higher percentages than blacks or Hispanics — about 18 percent of white children missed the tests, compared with about 10 percent of black or Hispanic students. And about 9 percent of children considered low income didn’t take PARCC.

For the most part where schools offered tests, students took them. Alain Locke Charter School was one of just four schools where, ISBE said, 100 percent of eligible students took the tests.

Principal Patrick Love said nobody asked about opting out during meetings held at his West Side elementary school.

“We kept parents updated on what the test was assessing and what it looked like,” he said. “We talked about how the results would give us useful information that we could use to provide targeted support and ensure that our students are on track for success in high school and college. As a result of many, many candid conversations all of our parents and students were on board with taking the more rigorous PARCC test.”