THE GENERAL COURT STATE HOUSE, BOSTON 0203:1059, October 26, 2016 Mitchell Chester, Commissioner Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 75 Pleasant Street Malden, MA 02148 RE: Spring 2016 PARCC exam Dear Commissioner Chester: ‘We write to object to recent actions by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education lowering the accountability and assistance level rating for schools located in our respective districts. The Department's decision to lower the accountability rating for those schools is due to low student participation in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams last spring. ‘We understand the reasons why the Department has set a 95 percent student participation rate as a benchmark for accountability status. First, the federal government requires any school accepting federal funding to have a 95 percent student participation rate on assessments. Second, the state’s requirement for a high participation rate is a way of ensuring that our public schools test all students and not just their highest performers. But the circumstances of last spring’s administration of PARCC were unique. On November 17, 2015, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to abandon the PARCC exam and instead move to an as-yet-undeveloped MCAS 2.0 exam. The motion approved by the Board states clearly “that schools and districts administering PARCC in spring 2016...in grades 3-8, will be held harmless for any negative changes in their school and district accountability level.” itis not surprising then that many parents chose for their children not to participate in the 2016 administration of the PARCC exam. Given the widespread publicity of the Board's and the ‘Commissioner's decision to not adopt PARCC, itis both unsurprising and reasonable that many parents in our districts chose for their children (o abstain from taking a test that state education officials had already acknowledged was not right for Massachusetts and should be abandoned as soon as a replacement exam could be developed. ‘We also note the perverse incentives of the current accountability system. Take this example. At the Swift River School in New Salem, just 13 of 81 students (16 percent) took the PARCC ‘exam last spring. The school’s participation rate was so low that the Department found that ithad “insufficient data” to give it any accountability rating. But in neighboring Leverett, where 56 of the 68 eligible students (82 percent) at Leverett Elementary School took the PARCC exam last spring, the Department deemed the participation rate low enough to be given a lower accountability level but not so low that the school avoided any re-classification. In essence, the current state system incentivizes a district’s students to opt out in big enough numbers that the district gets no accountability rating (e.g., New Salem) rather than a lowering of its accountability rating (e.g., Leverett). To be clear, the purpose of this letter is to point out a unique injustice that our districts are facing, due to lower student participation rates on the PARCC exam in a year when state education officials had already publicly acknowledged the test’s weaknesses and the need to abandon it with all due haste. Moreover, the Board explicitly voted to hold schools and districts that administered the PARCC exam in spring 2016 harmless for accountability purposes. Based on the Board’s directive, as well as principles of equity and fair play, schools and districts should be given a one-year, one-time reprieve from a lower accountability rating due to low student participation rates on last spring’s PARCC exam. We hope that you and the Department can come to a speedy resolution of this issue in favor of our affected school districts, Should you need more information, the affected legislative delegations are ready to meet with you to discuss the issue further. We hope that you take our concems under advisement and respond to us soon. Sincerely, of Leyla fale fen kok Stephen Kulik Hampshire, Franklin, and Worcester a oe Eileen Donoghie a Susannah Whips Lee id Franklin ‘aul Mark Ma # “Ol Second Berkshire Sal DiDomenico Jo puwiQt Middlesex and Suffolk SecYnd Hampshire lads Middlesex