Maryland will consider changes to standardized testing for next school year.
The PARCC tests Maryland has used for the past few years consume a lot of time near the end of the school year, and some students and teachers are not happy with that.
Maryland education officials are considering shortening the test or moving it to earlier in the school calendar
"We worked to get them shorter,” Maryland's State Superintendent of Schools Karen Salmon said. “We’re looking at having them more integrated into the school schedule rather than be daylong events. And that’s a goal of the governing board I serve on. We talk about it all the time."
Salmon said the agency received very little feedback about the PARCC tests, but at a public meeting in Baltimore, a group of Prince George's County high school students asked state officials to scrap the PARCC test or at least shrink it.
"When you have a school that has a lot of lower socioeconomic students issues there is a lot of other concerns, like maybe problems at home, so testing is not their main priority maybe as it is getting good grades and trying to work and helping out their families," Laurel High School sophomore Yarold Bautista said.
"I took two PARCC tests this year and I'm here to tell you that it's not working and that it should be eradicated," Laurel High sophomore Sydney Houston said.
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This year is the first year sophomores must actually pass the PARCC test before graduating. In prior years, they only needed to take it.
Maryland is committed to the PARCC test for at least one more year.
