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Something EVERY student and parent should be aware of: Pearson, the company who makes these tests are monitoring students' social media accounts. The name of the company doing the monitoring is Caveon.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/maureensullivan/2015/03/18/when-does-parcc-test-security-turn-into-spying-on-kids/2/

A great comment from a concerned parent:

" This is not just about whether teenagers need to be reminded that what they put on social media is public. These are issues of privacy and free speech and conflict of interest and very likely corruption. Before the test was given were parents sent a notice that their children’s accounts were monitored and their kids could face discipline? Who are the people hired to stalk/monitor children’s social media? Why don’t parents know a company called Caveon is hired to do this work and it will not reveal how it undertakes this monitoring. School officials need parental consent before a child can go on a field trip. Why doesn’t the FERPA law give parents the right to consent before student data is collected and shared with a third party vendor like Pearson? What role did the NJ DOE play and why does it appear that it acted at the request of a private, foreign corporation? Are the costs of this “monitoring” built into the contract that is paid with taxpayer dollars? Is this how taxpayers want their $’s spent? How long does this “monitoring” go on? Forever? As a third party contractor Pearson has access to vast amounts of personal, private information about children. The New York Times has reported that private information has been used to locate and identify tweeter(s) before. Are these incidents now recorded in that child’s record? Yesterday it was revealed that after this latest controversy erupted, a NJ testing official who had stated this was all an issue of parents and teachers not understanding social media, happens to be married to a subcontractor to Pearson, a subcontractor developing its national student database that provides the larger company with access to student records in New Jersey and the nation. Did this influence her conduct in this situation? What role did she play in approval of the contract with Pearson and the allocation of funds? Is defending the intellectual property rights of a private corporation more important than the rights of parents and students? Do we really want to accuse an 8 year old telling his or her parent about a test after school of doing something wrong? Are these tests even about education? I hope all parents will refuse to allow their child to take the test."