NEWS

Common Core tests shortened, but is it enough?

Jessie Balmert
Gannett Ohio

New state exams based on Common Core principles will be shorter and simpler after complaints about the long tests plagued their first year of official implementation.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers' governing board, which includes Ohio Superintendent Richard Ross, voted Wednesday to consolidate two testing windows into one and reduce the total test time by about 90 minutes for the 2015-16 school year, according to a release from the test makers.

"Tests are necessary to measure the progress of our students, but testing this school year was an administrative nightmare for many Ohio school districts," said Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy and advocacy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. "These common sense changes will make it feasible to administer a test that's more than just filling in bubbles without taking too much time away from what matters — teaching and learning."

Students will spend 60 fewer minutes on mathematics and 30 fewer minutes in English language arts. Even with the reduction, the tests will run between nine and just more than 11 hours long. The changes will make test times more uniform across grades.

The test was administered in eight to nine sections during the 2014-15 school year, but that would be reduced to six or seven sections next year. Most schools will complete testing in one to two weeks during a 30-day testing window in the spring. Tests are administered to students in third grade through high school.

The changes are part of the refining process based on feedback from educators in Ohio and other states, Ohio Department of Education spokesman J.C. Benton said.

"We will continue to work with school district administrators, teachers and our partners in the General Assembly to better streamline the assessments in the best interest of students," Benton said.

The Ohio House of Representatives has taken aim at the tests by voting to switch test providers, passing a different bill to reduce testing time by 50 percent and eliminating funding for the tests in its version of the state budget. At the same time, a recent report found Ohio's tests weren't rigorous enough to adequately measure students' progress.

But Senate lawmakers and Gov. John Kasich are more reticent to scrap the tests, making it unlikely that the tests will be eliminated entirely.

PARCC tests were administered in 11 states to about five million students during the 2014-15 school year.

jbalmert@gannett.com

740-328-8548

Twitter: @jbalmert