Sunday, March 22, 2015

Can God save the children from #PARCC?

This is the worst PARCC story I've heard:

A friend of mine who lives in one of New Jersey's many wealthy suburbs with excellent schools and parents who routinely hire tutors for their children as early as first grade was with her daughter at a children's Stations of the Cross event at her church. 

The 14 Stations of the Cross are specific locations or 'stations' throughout the nave of a church where small sculptures or paintings depict the Passion of Christ starting with his condemnation to death and ending with his body being placed in the tomb. To 'do the stations' one moves through them chronologically, praying or reflecting at each stop. Every Catholic religious instruction program teaches children how to do this during Lent. 

In this particular program hands-on activities were set up at each station. Children could write notes about any number of things as they related to the stations: people they needed to forgive; people from whom they needed forgiveness; things for which they were sorry; things they wanted to do better; etc. 

At the station where Jesus carries his cross children were to reflect on their burdens. The cross is a symbol of man's imperfections. When Jesus carried it, he was carrying the sins of all mankind. Any burden from which a child wanted relief could be written on a sticky note and placed on the cross. My friend said that there were approximately 100 notes on the cross, and written on about a quarter of them was one word: PARCC.

The PARCC test is not educational best practice. It is educational malpractice. Our children are being set up to fail. And when they fail, their teachers and their schools suffer the consequences. This is a terrible burden to place on children. It is abusive and it has to stop. And the only way it will stop is if enough parents refuse to allow our children to be subjected to it. If no one shows up to take the test, there is no test.




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