PARCC 101 Welcome
September 10. 2013
By nature, I’m an optimist.
I think it comes with the territory when you’re an academic leader. As a former chief
academic officer, the normal mode was for people to come to me with problems.
“Things are going to hell in a handbasket” was the frequently heard message. If
you’re on the receiving end of such messages – and I’m certain people in this
audience are regularly on the receiving end of such messages – it just doesn’t do to
simply throw up your hands and say “You’re absolutely right. Things are going to
hell in a handbasket.” It just doesn’t do at all. Instead, it’s our job to face the problem
head on, consider strategies for addressing the problem, and to bring people
together to get the problem solved. You know what I’m talking about. That’s where
the optimism comes in. Yes, we’ve got a problem, but by gum by collective action we
can solve it.
Well, we’ve got a problem in this country and in this state that’s bigger than what
can be solved by any one of our higher education institutions, but that ultimately
involves each of our institutions. And it’s going to take collective action to solve it.
Most succinctly put (as it was this week in a New York Times column by
Northwestern professor Robert J. Gordon) the problem is the Great Stagnation of
American Education. Gordon’ column, of course, is only the most recent expression
of this general idea. It’s a theme that has been in the air for at least the past 10 years
and was at the center of the work of the Spellings Commission, Obama’s first term
education initiative, his recently announced second term initiative, the Lumina
Foundation, the College Board, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and
the National Governor’s Association – and our very own Public Agenda for College
and Career Success.
As Gordon puts it, the epochal achievements of American economic growth have
gone hand in hand with rising educational attainment. From 1891 to 2007, the real
economic output per person grew at an average rate of 2 percent -- enough to
double every 35 years. The average American was twice as well off in 2007 as in
1972, four times as well off as in 1937, and 8 times as well off as in 1902. It’s no
coincidence that for eight decades from 1890 to 1970, educational attainment grew
swiftly. But since 1990, that improvement has slowed to a crawl. After leading the
world in educational attainment for decades, America has dropped to 16th.
There are numerous reasons for this stagnation, but during the past decade
educators and policy makers have come to the conclusion that at least part of the
problem, part of the what’s not working in the K-12 to post-secondary pipeline, is
that compared to other nations, THE AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM EXPECTS
TOO LITTLE.
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As you well know, far too many high school graduates whom we admit to our
institutions are simply not academically ready for college. [CCA stats on remedial]
The Common Core State Standards are the product of educators across multiple
states, not simply throwing up their hands, but rather facing this problem and
working together to get it solved. As you know, the basic concept behind the
Common Core was for higher education faculty to specify the knowledge and skills
needed to succeed in college-level coursework in English and mathematics and then
to work backwards from there to establish learning outcomes at the primary and
secondary grade levels.
But if you’re going to have standards, you also have to assess whether or not you’re
meeting those standards. And that’s where PARCC comes in.
The math and English Language Arts PARCC assessments will be aligned with
Common Core State Standards, which were written with a focus on what students
need to be college and career ready by the end of 12th grade.
PARCC will employ a new approach to assessing students’ academic capacity. It will
be performance based.
What will a performance-based assessment look like? And how will it encapsulate
the essential knowledge, skills and habits of mind necessary for students to be
deemed college and career ready? These questions will be addressed this morning
by speakers from PARCC and the State Board.
Allison Jones and Callie Riley from PARCC, who have been working with Achieve on
the multi-state collaborative to develop the PARCC assessments, have helped
postsecondary institutions across PARCC states prepare for the next generation of
college and career readiness assessments.
Dr. Mary O’Brian from the Illinois State Board of Education will talk about how
Illinois is implementing PARCC in our PK-12 schools.
But what does this mean for higher education?
The central question for those of us in higher education, by which I mean for each of
your institutions, is the way you will integrate 11th grade PARCC assessment into
your current advising and placement practices. For example, what will a PARCC
score of 4 or 5 mean when it comes to placement in credit-bearing courses at your
institution?
As we learn more about PARCC, what we’ll also find is that higher education has an
opportunity to work more closely with K-12 partners on several fronts.
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For example, students who demonstrate college and career readiness in the 11th
grade can be moved into early college opportunities in 12th grade.
Students who demonstrate that they are not college ready in 11th grade can go into
college-aligned courses that will prepare them while they are still in high school,
reducing the future likelihood for the need for remediation at college.
Dr. Rebecca Watts will speak about the work Ohio has been undertaking on these
fronts.
Most importantly though, is that this summit, in addition to building your awareness
of PARCC, is launching the development of a statewide infrastructure of PARCC
teams from campuses across the state. To that end, we specifically designed this
summit for senior administrators in student services and academic affairs because
you are key decision makers at colleges and universities.
After hearing from state and national experts, you will spend the afternoon engaging
in facilitated planning to develop institution-specific PARCC goals and an action plan
for your campus team.
Your campus team will play a critical role in establishing institutional policy in use
of PARCC data. Your campus team leader will also serve as the communication
pathway between your institution, the State, and PARCC as new developments
emerge.
From information that you will submit at the close of the summit, we will be
developing a directory of campus team leads. This will enable us gather feedback on
institutional needs and to disseminate information on future PARCC professional
development opportunities.
Those are the practicalities. But, to return to where I started, know that the work
we’re doing today is part of a large-scale national effort of the entire education
community – k-12 and higher ed – to elevate expectations for learning and
ultimately to increase educational attainment to the level of the world’s bestperforming countries.
On behalf of the IBHE, ICCB and ISBE, I thank you for coming today.
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