Will MCAS drop out of Bay State schools?

By David Taber

The nerve-racking test standing between high school seniors and graduation may take a hiatus as a requirement from Massachusetts public schools. State Rep. Carl Sciortino (D-Somerville) has filed a bill that would take the pressure out of passing Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Standards (MCAS) testing for two years.

The proposed legislation calls for a 31-member committee to reexamine the standardized test high school students need to pass before receiving a diploma.

“The Board of Education created a very narrow test that doesn’t address a broad standard curriculum,” he said.  “The English and math sections don’t even cover the entire English and math curriculum. We are saying that when you have a state standardized test nothing else matters, you force schools to teach to the test.”

The last round of education reform concluded in 1993. It paved the way for the adoption of the MCAS test. In 2002, passing the test became a mandatory requirement for graduation.  During the process the original intent of the reform effort was lost, Sciortino said.

The narrow standards penalize students who are not good at taking tests and have lead to a 32 percent increase in drop out rates since 2002, he said.  Students who fail the test are 10 times more likely to drop out, according to Department of Education statistics.

Sciortino’s proposal directs the State Board of Education to create a 31-member committee to assess high school graduation requirements and develop a multiple assessment system, to be put in place by 2009.   

While the commission is establishing the new standards, the bill calls for a moratorium on the use of the test as a graduation requirement.  Students would instead have to meet local graduation standards. The MCAS would still be administered to students from third grade on. However, it would have no bearing on graduating seniors. Under the proposed legislation, a student could fail the MCAS and still receive a diploma so long as classes were passed, Sciortino said.

The bill does not call for the permanent elimination of the MCAS test as a component of any potential plan to standardize graduation criteria, he said.

Michelle Norman, policy director for Gov. Deval Patrick’s special advisor for education, said the governor has not taken a position on Sciortino’s bill. However, Norman said she thinks if the bill passes it would be in line with Patrick’s goals.

Patrick has established two taskforces, one focused on pre-kindergarten through high school graduation and one focused on higher education. They will meet throughout the spring and present recommendations to state special advisor for education and Bridgewater State University President Mohler-Faria, who will compile recommendations new education reform plan, Norman said.

“Massachusetts needs to look education as a comprehensive system that begins before kindergarten and continues through high school and through higher education,” she said.

The main goal of the proposed reform will be to more effectively link education standards to economic and workforce development, and it makes sense to reassess MCAS, she said.

“There has been enough time now to look at the successes of MCAS and the weaknesses of MCAS,” said Norman.  “The question we have begun to ask ourselves as a state is, is that enough?”

The test fails to assess students’ creative thinking, problem solving and teamwork skills, she said.

The governor’s proposal will likely include provisions for the establishment of an executive office for education.  Although she could not say when the plan would be unveiled, she said short-term reform goals will likely be announced this summer.

Linda Nooman, managing director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, said she sees the bill as a Trojan horse. She said she sees his bill as an attempt to wipe out the test as a graduation standard and believes it is leading to the permanent elimination of the MCAS. Even removing it temporarily as a graduation standard troubles her, she said.

“Any type of temporary elimination would be fairly chaotic and counter to the goals of education reform,” said Nooman.

Comments

[Jack Meofe]

MCAS is a joke! In order to get your diploma you need to pass it is ridilous. Thats basically saying that all the school work he/she does throughout their 4 years in high school are worthless. To me its worthless because it takes time away from the teachers schedule and is a waste of our money> I do not know one good reason for it and if they say it helps kids for the future is BS. Kids dont need to know how much atoms are in a molecule and all that. Whomever took chemistry in their lives knows that 99.9% percent of all you learn that year is forgoting by summer time. We have the SAT's and that should be the main fact to determine how far you go with your future.

[Ron Newman]

Whether or not MCAS is required, I hope SHS graduates are expected to display better writing skills than shown above...

[brickbottom]

Newman,

You are such a little peckerhead it is comical. Do you ever have anything to say that would add to a post instead of your snide little moronic comments? You try your best to make a mockery of anyone you can on these boards...but it is you that is the jackass.

[Steve]

"You are such a little peckerhead it is comical. Do you ever have anything to say that would add to a post instead of your snide little moronic comments?"

What is comical is those two sentences used back to back - especially coming from an anonymous coward insulting someone who has the stones to post using his real name.

brickbottom, good use of "peckerhead" by the way - are you in 3rd grade or 4th?

[Jack Meofe]

Mr Ron Newman. Your a real big man always sitting there behind your computer writing negative remarks about what people have to say. I did make mistakes in the writing before but your mother made the mistake of having you and you dont see me hating on her do you. You must get lots of pleasure sitting there behind your computer playing dugeons and dragons while never even talked to a girl in your life. Steve's a clown himself coming to Ron's rescue liek he Robin or something lol. I got a suggestion. Ron and Steve could get together one these days and should put together a good game of russian roulette.

[david t.]

time to take a deep breath and count to 10, boys.

[brickbottom]

Steve,

You can defend your "partner" Newmie all you want. But he is and will always remain a PECKERHEAD. As for you little man, as you and Newmie are both strolling down the bike path contemplating how intelligent you both are maybe, just maybe you both would realize how childish it is attacking someone's grammar. We all can't be as smart as you two think you are.

Oh yeah....I think it was about the 4th grade when I learned the word peckerhead, it was used for people like self absorbed Newmie!

[Grog29]

MCAS is the ACCOUNTABILITY phase of the 1993 Education Reform Act in Massachusetts.
If teachers want to start up this "we don't want the tests anymore" crap, then you AIN'T GETTING THE BILLIONS THAT WERE ADDED TO STATE SUPPORT FOR LOCAL SCHOOLS!

Fund the local schools with just property taxes.

No ACCOUNTABILITY....NO CASH!

Stop whining about having to test. Testing has been going on for hundreds of years.

[Bill Sheton]

Well, setting aside the mutual name calling, I believe that Jack Meofe makes this legitimate point: most of what we learn in K-through-12 schooling, we forget by the next year. Do you remember from 7th grade social studies what countries grow flax? I don't. How about from 11th grade world history, exactly when and where Prussia existed, or what became of it? Hmmm.

I mean, even those who plan and run K-through-12, public and private, have to acknowledge that they can't remember what they were taught either, outside of what they chose to specialize in, in college, and now teach. Since we promptly forget most of the content of what we are taught, the larger function of shooling in society must not be about learning CONTENT. I think that its about learning FORM.

Form is that you do what your told. The reward for doing homework isn't that it is intrinsically meaningful. You do it to get the grade and pass the class. You don't memorize stuff because you can immediately put it into use. You do it to pass the test. The content changes constantly. The form is the same, over and over, day in and day out.

The form teaches us to do what we are told: Don't expect to perform work becauuse it it meaningful, but because you have to make living. Obey authority, not because it is manifestly wise and moral, but because it is in a superior position in the hierarchy. If you don't challenge the way things are, you will be tolerated and may be rewarded.

To be tolerated or rewarded, you must eat shit. If you want a position of relative influence, you must eat shit for another four years. If you want even more influence, like protetcing the priestly prerogatives of those who manage our medical and legal institutions, you must eat so much shit that you demonstrate that you have acquired a taste for shit, and will therefore make other people eat shit. The more shit that you eat, the less likely you are to challenge a system that sytematically makes people eat shit.

I'm guessing that MCAS was a systematic attempt to ensure that students have learned something in the process of eating all that shit. But it demonstrably doesn't work. I'm not smart enough to know what would. But I'm guessing that it has to do with fundamentally changing the FORM of teaching so as to emphasize learning CONTENT instead of eating SHIT.

[Dr. Mrs. McCarthy]

William Shelton!!!!!!!!!!!!

What in God's name have you been smoking? You crazy old cracker you! I have a good mind to wash your potty mouth out with Tom's All Natural Soap. What kind of language is that to be spouting one day after Easter? Raging against the Man is fine, but the girls in the Community Room here at LSOP are beet red after reading your last rant.

Take ten, no make that thirty, deep breaths, ask Fergal for another Jameson and then go home and ask for God's forgiveness.

Praying for you,

Dr. Mrs. McCarthy
(for Mayor 2007)

[James Norton]

Bill -

That was really shitty of you.

1608 Society Rules!

JN

[get a clue]

Shelton, get a clue. You sound like you're advocating the abolition of schools of learning. How about the purpose is to give you basic knowledge of the world around you and to teach you how to think! People actually do remember more than you would think if they want to (have you ever attended the Brian Higgins Trivia Night?). But more importantly they get a good basic understanding of the world, perhaps some cocktail party chat, and they actually train their brain to think, to question, to wonder, to analyze. Maybe you should try it sometime. I was always taught that someone with a good education has a better vocabulary than you demonstrated.

[Please]

Bill get over the fact that you got screwed on Assembly Square, Give Jamie a big wet kiss and go dance on the table naked again.

[Ron Newman]

Folks, take another careful look at that comment's signature; this isn't the real Bill.

[Bill Shelton]

Ron,

I am sincerely sorry to disappoint you. Despite two decades of schooling, I spelled my own name wrong.

Mrs. McCarthy and Please,

Good advice from both of you. I'll try to take it. (Look out Jamie.)

Get a Clue,

No, I'm not advocating the abolition of schools. I would like to see them re-imagined and restructured to accomplish the purpose that I believe you stated eloquently: "To give you basic knowledge of the world around you and to teach you how to think." Nor am I attacking teachers, most of who struggle to achieve that purpose in an institution whose curriculum, structure, and operating policies undermine it.

All,

I've clearly failed as a communicator by drawing more attention to the Form of my communication, than its Content, the essence of which was this: "The content changes constantly. The form is the same, over and over, day in and day out. The form teaches us to do what we are told."

[Dr. Mrs. McCarthy]

Butters,

Feel free to continue to post at anytime. Just make sure you take your size five foot out of your mouth and take your thumb out of your ass before you do so.

Dr. Mrs. McKarthee

[To Joyce]

Why don't you ask Sciortino, he seemed to have all the answers.