PARCC begins

I’ve read most of my PARCC manual, the manual that will be recycled or destroyed when the test ends. All teachers get manuals. All of these manuals are to be destroyed and given that the PARCC test is supplanting state achievement tests throughout the country, I can’t imagine how many manuals have been passed out in the last few weeks. Whole forests died to administer this test. The forbidding tone within the manual’s pages emphasizes the many possible transgressions and irregularities teachers and administrators can make. Transgressions and irregularities are all supposed to be documented. Any scratch paper needs a student name on it and all these sheets must be counted at test’s end. Any wall posters or decorations with any academic content whatsoever must be covered. All my school’s cheery walls are covered up now or stripped. If you’ve seen Matilda, the school looks like Crunchem Hall Primary School on a day when Ms. Trunchbull is visiting. I took my manual to a hair appointment this week-end and joked with the woman doing my hair that she had better not let me leave that manual behind because the feds would probably arrest me if I did.

I am fascinated by the specter of this test.

Eduhonesty: I predict that large chunks of America will fail PARCC. What popular response will follow when this happens? What will we do when the Common Core sinks our test scores and Pearson’s new, computerized test flunks America?