By Alex Napoliello, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
WATCHUNG — A superintendent was taken aback after learning Pearson, a giant educational publisher and testing company, is monitoring her students’ social media pages during PARCC testing.
Elizabeth C. Jewett, superintendent of Watchung Hills Regional High School District, was notified by her testing coordinator that the state Department of Education called and said a Watchung Hills student tweeted a photo of a PARCC exam question.
In response, Jewett sent an email to colleagues on March 10 alerting them of the monitoring — and calling the practice a “bit disturbing.”
All students in New Jersey grades three through 11 are currently taking the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test, a computer-based standardized exam that has sparked an “opt-out” movement among some parents who are refusing to let their children take the exam.
Jewett said in the letter that further investigation found the student did in fact post a tweet about the exam but there wasn’t a photo. The tweet was deleted, Jewett said, and the school contacted the student’s parents, who were appalled to hear that their child’s social media account is being monitored.
Jewett agreed.
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