Tennessee Abandons PARCC Common Core Test Consortium

A new law passed in the state of Tennessee has led Gov. Bill Haslam (R) and the state’s chief education officials to quietly quit the PARCC Common Core test consortium, leaving the multi-state test group with only 15 members.

As Education Week reports, while  H.B. 1549, which was signed into law last month, does not actually direct Tennessee to quit PARCC, it does require the state to use its current assessment, the TCAP, in the coming 2014-2015 school year and to issue a request for proposals for a new test to be administered in 2015-2016.

In a letter to Laura Slover, CEO of Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), Gov. Haslam, Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman, and Fielding Rolston, chairman of the state board of education, wrote, “Tennessee is hereby withdrawing from the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and will no longer be a governing state or a participating state.”

“Accordingly, Kevin Huffman is resigning as a member of the PARCC Governing Board,” the officials continued. “All staff from the State of Tennessee are resigning from their respective PARCC committees and working groups, effective immediately.”