Anti-PARCC protest will be held on Lakeshore Drive in Haddon Township on April 25

There will be an anti-PARCC testing protest called “Park the PARCC” held by local parents from Collingswood, Haddon Township, Oaklyn and Haddonfield on Saturday, April 25 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Cars decorated with anti-PARCC posters will be parked along Lakeshore Drive by Newton Lake Park in Haddon Township.

The goal is to raise awareness of the negative impact PARCC has on our schools, just as the second round of the test begins next week. Cars decorated with anti-PARCC messages and filled with parents and students opposed to high-stakes standardized testing will be parked bumper to bumper in convoy fashion along Lakeshore Drive beside Newton Lake Park in Haddon Township. Members of parent advocacy groups, Collingswood Cares About Education, Haddon Township Cares About Schools and Haddonfield Cares About Schools will be on hand to talk to park-goers about the issues PARCC tests have created in New Jersey schools.

Why these parent groups are opposed to PARCC:

• PARCC takes up too much time and money in schools without any evidence that it will help improve student performance or provide useful feedback on their academic strengths and weaknesses.
• Because PARCC scores are linked to school rankings, districts are forced to devote more time to math and English at the expense of non-tested subjects like social studies, science, the arts and even recess — robbingstudents of the well-rounded education they deserve.
• Teachers must spend a disproportionate amount of time prepping students for tests. We feel their time is better spent creating rich classroom experiences and learning about their students as individuals, not test scores.
• The NJ Department of Education is rolling out another phase of PARCC testing for November, as well as tests aimed at students in kindergarten through second grade. Our students’ academic experience is increasingly defined by testing, not teaching.
• We are not against rigorous, well-designed assessments that give useful information on what children are learning and need to learn better. However, numerous studies show that high-stakes standardized tests like PARCC have produced little to no gains in student academic performance nationwide.