Dustin Racioppi and Hannan Adely, NorthJersey
New Jersey will begin moving away from the controversial PARCC exams and move toward a “new generation” of statewide testing, Gov. Phil Murphy said Tuesday.
[…]Robert Barbier, a high school English teacher in Garfield, said he believes the proposed changes in testing would have a big impact in the classroom.
Schools, he said, had “wasted a tremendous amount of time” preparing students for the test and administering the test. The changes will also come as a relief for many students who struggled with the exams, he said.
“I can’t express the difficulties I saw with students who are learning disabled or who were English language learners. It created a tremendous amount of frustration,” said Barbier, who is executive vice president for pre-kindergarten through grade 12 for the American Federation of Teachers of New Jersey.
He hoped the change would lead to more free time for creative assignments — something he said had been diminished because of the focus on testing.
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