The PARCC was a new standardized test that was supposed to be administered to public school children in New Jersey. The standardized test it would replace was the NJ ACT. The NJ ACT was antiquated or flawed for several reasons.

The NJ ACT used “old-school” fill-in-the-oval with a Number 2 pencil technology. It was biased, both real and imagined, with respect to race, gender, district curriculum, district resources. Finally, it was easy to cheat on.

Many students probably did cheat. More importantly, administrators in a number of New Jersey districts were caught “cheating”; changing incorrect answers to correct answers on student’s standardized tests, either during the test or after the student turned it in.

See: Woodbridge Schools Superintendent John Crowe is Out; Board Seeks Replacement Sept. 21, 2012.

At peak “popularity”, which was between 2012 and 2016, approximately twenty other states initiated, or had plans, to purchase and administer the test to their resident public school children.

PARCC stood for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. In theory, the idea of any standardized test was not objectionable to most parents, including myself. Then again, before the PARCC came along, most parents, including myself, never gave standardized tests much thought.

The PARCC was analogous to the vaccine debate today. Most parents viewed the PARCC as possibly beneficial to their child’s education, but at worst, still harmless.

Similarly, most parents have viewed “vaccines” in-general, as beneficial to their child’s health, but mostly aware there were at least some small risks. Like the PARCC, parents did not give vaccines much thought.

PARCC Pushback 2015!

In the two or three years preceding the first use of the PARCC in New Jersey in the Spring of 2015, NJ school districts were told to prepare. The PARCC would be administered on lap-tops, Chrome-Books and tablets, so school districts had to invest heavily in their IT infrastructure. They did.

In the Fall of 2014, the push from School Boards, administrators, and the State, to prepare for the Spring 2015 PARCC began and the pushback from a few parents and teachers began.

The objections to the PARCC were numerous. Among the issues parents found objectionable, were the focus on “screens”, teaching to the test, privacy concerns and limited statistical data showing the test produced reliable and useful results.

Teachers objected to being forced to follow PARCC (Common core) related lesson plans and having a large percentage of their annual job performance review weighted towards how their students did on the PARCC.

Those were my objections as well. Then I got angry.

Do Not Lie to Me.

When state level elected officials and agency heads, and school board members (who are also neighbors), and the school principal start making crap up to push something, that is a good sign that something dirty is going on.

Those lies, included, but were not limited to the following;

• “The school district will not get funds from the state if we do not administer the PARCC.”
  • This is a wealthy district, we do not get state funds, that’s how it works in N.J.
• “Your kid will not graduate if they do not take the PARCC.”
  • An empty threat at the time and complete “BS” in retrospect.
• “Your kid will not be allowed in the school on test days if you refuse them from taking it.”
  • State law says you have to let any kid in the school when dropped off by a parent. “I’ll bring the police with me.”

Mistaken assertions are one thing, and many people involved in pushing PARCC propaganda were just repeating what they were told. Nevertheless, many involved knew better.

That they were willing to lie for the PARCC was a “tell”, or a suggestion that there were other reasons, beyond the stated reasons, why the PARCC must be implemented.

The New Jersey ACT determined property values.

Nearly every town in New Jersey has this situation.

Town “A” has an “Above Average” school district.

Town “B”, which borders Town “A”, has an “Average” or “Below Average” school district.

Given two houses, exactly alike, the one in Town “A” (Above Average) will trade at a premium to the one in Town “B” (Average). We once estimated the price of the same size and type of house, on the same, but different side of the street, where the side of the street the house is on determines whether a child goes to an “above average” school, or just an “average” school, will trade at a 40% spread to each other. In other words, the house on the “above average” side of the street will be 40% more valuable than the house on the “average” side of the street, all else being equal.

That is, a good portion of a houses value is dependent on the reputation of the local schools. The reputation of the school is highly dependent on standardized test scores.

There is therefore a lot of pressure on teachers, administrators, school boards, mayors and town councils to make sure test scores remain “Above Average”. To the extent the assessed value of local properties keep going up, the mayor and council can avoid increasing the tax rate enough to avoid pitch forks and torches.

To summarize;

• high test scores = high home values.
• high home values = low tax rates.
• low tax rates = fewer unpopular decisions.
• fewer unpopular decisions = greater election success.

An Anecdote from one Bucolic NJ Borough.

During the PARCC Wars of the winter of 2015, handfuls of parents and teachers from different New Jersey districts started letting school administrators know that their kid was not going to take the PARCC.

There were many parents who did not like the idea of the PARCC, but because the residents of New Jersey’s suburbs do not like to rock-the-boat, they kept their mouths shut and went with the flow.

No matter how much they agreed about the test’s uselessness, few parents were willing to risk their perceived standing in town. To be blunt, most of New Jersey’s suburban parent population still have the mindset they must impress their peers at the cool kids’ table by never taking a controversial stand.

One day in early 2015, we were talking to the neighbor lady who was not a fan of public education in general. One of her kids was in the public school system and her older kids already passed through. She was sympathetic to the position of those that opposed the PARCC but vocal about it. No boat rocking for her.

Then she let slip an interesting story.

At least one teacher, under the guidance of school administrators, was caught cheating on the NJ ASK in the 2008 to 2010 timeframe.

A student, handed in their NJ ASK. The teacher erased wrong answers and replaced them with correct answers. The parents found out and there was a cover-up.

As noted, a few NJ districts had been caught by 2012, and the culprits punished, but this incident never went beyond the district’s lawyers and the student’s parents. No state investigation, no press releases. In return for the parent’s silence, the district, on the taxpayer’s dime, sent the student to a private school by Town Car for his final year of middle-school.

The NJ school district was a wealthy one. Always above average NJ ACT Scores and always above average real estate prices. There is no doubt pressure on the teachers and administrators from the school board and mayors’ office to keep the districts NJ ACT scores in the top 10% at all costs.

Eleven Atlanta school employees were convicted of racketeering

The racketeering charges arose from a 2011 investigation, which found teachers were changing test scores in some of Atlanta’s test scores. One convicted teacher, Shani Robinson, who wrote a book about the ordeal (link to NPR interview. See bottom of page for link to book.), made it clear that her actions were prompted by pressure from “higher-ups.”

That is, administrators wanted to show the State that these districts were improving, so some teachers were encouraged to “fix” scores. Depending on the district, State funds could be at stake if no improvement, as measured by standardized test scores, was apparent, or schools in poor performing districts could be shut down under “No Child Left Behind” legislation.

As the case of the wealthy New Jersey District, and the poor Atlanta District, administrators and elected officials have certainly had the motive to cheat. As implied by Shani Robinson in an interview with NPR, those with the financial resources to afford a good lawyer were mostly able to avoid a trial, if not charges altogether. In that vein, we imply that the poor Atlanta Districts and wealthy NJ Districts are similar.

The PARCC Push was just to cover up past cheating.

In the 2010 – 2012 period, when administrative level cheating on the NJ ACT was discovered in a few, poorer districts, the wealthier districts decided to support the scrapping of the NJ ACT less their cheating ways become apparent.

We would argue that the willingness of local school administrators, and board members, who were my neighbors, to lie about the consequences of not allowing my kids to sit for it, and threaten them with punishment (sit alone in the office during the test), was a function of a need to cover up incidents of past cheating on the NJ ACT.

That all but a very small few wealthy New Jersey school districts were willing to side with anti-PARCC parents, and a lack of interest by many New Jersey lawmakers, whose districts encompassed wealthy districts, implies, in my opinion, that they were all cheating.

The lesson for controversies currently under consideration by local New Jersey school boards, administrators and state level agency heads and lawmakers is that they can easily be “bought”, or surrender to threats, or repeat narratives they know are false even if they know you personally, and even if their kid and yours play on the same soccer team and are in the same class.

Finally, most New Jersey parents would rather wreck their child’s education, emotional well being, and apparently “health”, than rock-the-boat and risk losing being invited to their kid’s friend’s parent’s annual barbeque, and whom they have only met once.