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Diegnan: Let’s Take More Time to Properly Evaluate PARCC Exam

(TRENTON) — Assembly Education Committee Chairman Patrick J. Diegnan, Jr. (D-Middlesex) had the following published Friday in The Times of Trenton:

“Teachers positively affect the lives of their students in countless ways. Many times, the best teacher is assigned the most challenging students. Improvement is incremental and not easily calculated. Basing teacher performance on the results of a standardized test is unreliable at best and may actually discourage our best teachers from working with those most in need of their talents.

“While standardized testing does have the potential to help identify areas in which a student may need additional academic attention, the high-stakes PARCC exam has the potential to compromise classroom instruction. Teachers must devote weeks at a time to making sure students comprehend not only the actual material being tested, but also the unfamiliar technology used to administer the exam…”

To read the rest of Assemblyman Diegnan’s op-ed, please click here.