I hate it, hate it, hate it.
DD9 took the PARCC online Social Studies field tests this year. Slow computer response, troubles connecting - these issues will crop up without warning for the foreseeable future (how many of us continue to experience frozen computers or the blue screen of death over the many years we've been on computers). Rather an important issue when these are TIMED tests. And those scores are then used to evaluate teachers, students, and schools. There should be some way to evaluate teachers, etc., but this is misguided. I am not a teacher nor in the educational field, BTW.
The practice test for 4th grade Social Studies was atrocious. DH and I have doctorates in the sciences and we had a difficult time with it. My friend with a MBA from Stanford and I came to completely different inferences from the "sources" on several of the questions. The practice test was poorly written and there's no way to know what the actual test was like because Pearson keeps it under a cloak of secrecy.
Written responses are evaluated by temp workers hired by the local temp agency (only requirement is a college degree), and scored against a rubric. They are paid $11/hr, and these are the people who play a large role in the actual test scores.
I will do all I can to get CC and PARCC out of our state. The number of states pulling out of CC across the country is increasing. Our tax dollars going to private testing/publishing consortia and other big corporations just so that our children can taught how to be conformist line workers is not something I can support. Diane Ravitch has written extensively about this issue, and I encourage everyone to take a deeper look at what is going on in public education.
