Summary of chosen solution
Our chosen solution is to abolish PARCC Testing and return back to an original state standardized test. For our solution there would be one test mandated and created by the state for public school children in grades 3-11. The test would not be computerized and would be created by the Department of Education in the State of New Jersey and would be given to students at the end of the year. It would be used to assess students progress and identify any severe learning difficulties and display the level of intelligence students possessed compared to each other in the state to depict any districts where the level of education should be improved. Money would not need to be spent in schools for new technology and students would not have to deal with typing and entering numerical equations on a computer. Testing will only take up less than a week of instruction per year. It would be implemented by first getting the NJ State government to agree to drop out of PARCC. Then we would need them to work with the NJ Department of Education to set up a group of educating officials to create a new state test that goes along with the common core standards, while also making it non-electronic, user friendly and a level difficulty suitable for the grade taking it, all done within a year or two.
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Explanation of why we selected this solution
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Our group chose this solution because we felt that changing PARCC would still not fix many of the primary issues. We wanted a non-computerized test that wasn’t made by an outside organization that didn’t ruely know about education and NJ students. Additionally, using the SAT or ACT as a graduation requirement would not solve the issue for the public school children below grade 11. We also felt it would be difficult to make this a graduation requirement because the SAT/ACT is taken outside of school and costs money from the individual taking the test instead of the State. Overall, we felt there was no major issue with utilizing an original state standardized test like we had done in years past. lastly, we want students to get the best education as possible and it was clear that PARCC was taking time away from that and creating too many difficulties in returning the focus to classroom learning.
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There are many advantages to our solution, including the small amount of money needed for our new test compared to the money used for PARCC. We have great support for our solution including: the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, the NJEA, Support Our Schools, Chris Christie and many other organizations consisting of parents and educators. Our solution is very feasible and successful similar state designed tests have been used in the past. However, a disadvantage is that the College Board supports PARCC testing, which is very influential in terms of tests and education standards. It would not be difficult to implement our solution because of New Jersey's experience with state designed standardized tests.
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Advantages and disadvantages of our chosen solution
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How our solution is Constitutional
Our solution is constitutional because the NJ State Law requires public school students to be tested in some way. While abolishing PARCC we will create a new test so that public school children will continue to be tested. Additionally, state testing has been conducted in the past and our solution is not different so there is already precedence for our solution.