Illinois students will get a hint about how they scored on the PARCC test, the standardized test based on the Common Core, when statewide results are announced Wednesday.
Federal Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the scores may sound like bad news.
Duncan is currently swinging through the Midwest on a Back-to-School bus tour, just as Illinois braces for the release of new standardized test scores.
When asked how to comfort parents and teachers who may be shocked if the PARCC scores are worse than previous tests, Duncan’s response is a lot like “yes, honey, you really do look fat in those jeans”.
“It’s so important that we tell the truth to parents and to students about are they on track to be successful in college or not," Duncan said. "And many states, including Illinois, dummy-down those standards to make politicians look good.”
The PARCC test, Duncan says, sets a new, more realistic baseline that should inspire school districts to better prepare students for careers.
The White House recently announced a new policy that will allow applicants next year to fill out the form in October, using information filled in automatically from their 2015 tax returns. Previously, they would’ve had to wait until the following January to use the 2016 tax return — and had to answer more than 100 questions, by hand.
Duncan says this change will help more students get Pell grants and other financial aid.
“And we think just on making the forms simpler, we’ll have tens of thousands of additional young people going to college who thought they couldn’t afford it, who thought it was for rich folks and not folks like them," Duncan said. "So we feel very, very good about this.”
Duncan was speaking via cell phone from his annual Back-To-School bus tour, which includes stops in Williamsfield and Champaign.
