On Monday, January 8th a state appellate court ruled that PARCC, or the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, a standardized test for grades 3 through 12 that is used across the country has been removed as a requirement to graduate high school.

The PARCC is a two-part test that focuses on both English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics and is used to see if students are on track to succeed in college and future careers. It was introduced to about 24 states in spring 2010, including New Jersey. But why was PARCC removed from state’s graduation requirements?

During an interview with Guidance Counselor Mrs. Nydam, we asked her opinion on the change in the school’s graduation requirements. Although she has not been informed of all of the information regarding changes in testing, she was still able to inform us of her own opinion about PARCC. Even though Mrs. Nydam favored the junior year graduation test we used to have in the past, she explained that “PARCC has both its advantages and disadvantages, one advantage being that it is tied into our core standards and one disadvantage being that it takes multiple days to take which takes up too much class time.”

From a student’s point of view, this was a wise decision for the state because many students did not believe in taking the test, and therefore did not put forth their full effort. It is still unclear how this new ruling will affect schools’ graduation requirements across the state of New Jersey, as well as here in Point Pleasant Boro High School.