To: Michael O'Neill, Chairperson of the Boston School Committee, Claudio Martinez, Vice-Chairperson of the Boston School Committee, Meg Campbell, Boston School Committee Member, Dr. Hardin Coleman, Boston School Committee Member, Rev. Gregor...

Boston: Say No to PARCC & High-Stakes Standardized Testing

As stakeholders within Boston Public Schools, we do not support the recommendation from the superintendent to adopt PARCC this year. We refuse to subject ourselves to yet another standardized assessment that negatively impacts our curricular and instructional choices.

Why is this important?

At the Boston School Committee meeting on September 17th, Interim Superintendent McDonough recommended that all students in grades 3-8 and in grade 11 take the PARCC this year in order to better prepare for the potential transition from MCAS to PARCC. Tenth graders will still be required to take and pass the MCAS as a graduation requirement.

As teachers, students, family members, and administrators within Boston Public Schools, we do not support this recommendation. We refuse to subject ourselves to yet another high-stakes standardized assessment that negatively impacts our curricular and instructional choices.

We have serious concerns about the increase of testing in all of our schools. To be clear, we do not necessarily believe that the MCAS is a better assessment than PARCC. As Lisa Guisbond, the executive director of Citizens for Public Schools, has stated, “With PARCC versus MCAS, districts have been given a false choice. They have to pick which of two flawed punitive systems will do the least harm to their efforts to engage and educate their students.”

We, the undersigned, believe that using test scores to evaluate teaching and learning is unjust and inequitable. Rather than pouring time, energy, and money into a new testing program, we demand that the district and the state reevaluate the ways in which it measures school and student achievement. Boston students deserve better.

For more information, check out the resources compiled here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vjg5BPfUWjBnttfbv-vqfbaNnT307BJaoDQoIaDjglA/edit?usp=sharing