Santa Fe High students say standardized tests go too far.
A dozen Santa Fe High School students stood in front of the state Public Education Department today, calling for a meeting with Public Education Department Secretary Hanna Skandera over testing that they say goes too far.
Protests also occurred on Monday and Tuesday, with students walking out of local high schools to express opposition to the PARCC test, a standardized exam that replaces the state's flagship Standards Based Assessment (SBA) test this year.
Don Jaramillo, a 17-year-old junior at Santa Fe High School, says he and the other students who walked out this morning to protest were suspended for the rest of the day. So they came downtown.
"If we're going to get suspended, we're going to go to the capitol," says Jaramillo, pictured left.
Jaramillo says he and his classmates want to express their concerns about the PARCC test. Part of his opposition relates to PARCC's replacement of the SBA.
"We've been taught to do the SBA since third grade," he says. "So we've been practicing our whole life."
In contrast, Jaramillo says specific training for PARCC only began this week. The test, which will take an estimated nine hours to complete over multiple weeks, is also intended to be taken completely on computers. Jaramillo says a practice math test he took for PARCC on a computer recently didn't show him his score.
He also says the test is taking time from learning in the classroom.
PARCC's ties to New Mexico run deep. A federally consortium of 14 states, PARCC is an acronym for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College Careers. Each state belonging to the consortium is essentially opted into using the PARCC assessment as its standardized test.
Last year, the state Public Education Department took on the task of serving as the fiscal agent for a contract to write and administer the test in the entire consortium. The state awarded the contract to education giant corporation Pearson, and critics immediately questioned whether the contract was rigged. A lawsuit over the matter is pending in Santa Fe District Court (for more on this, read here).
Though a meeting with Skandera didn't seem likely on Wednesday, the students did talk with Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel Boyd yesterday.
"We got some answers from him," Jaramillo says, "but we don't know if he supports us because he's leaving."
Boyd was named the lone finalist earlier this month for a more lucrative superintendent position in Fort Worth. He hasn't publicly accepted the job yet.
Students say a big protest, involving both Santa Fe High School and Capital High School, is planned for Friday.
