(last update: 20-Jun-2002)
MCAS is not a multiple-choice test that would be easy to grade. It contains numerous open-response questions that require written essays. As any teacher will tell you, essays are not easy to grade. What may be shocking to most people, is that the MCAS essays are graded by out-of-state seasonal contractors, half without any teaching experience and one third without even a college degree. They are seasonal workers that undergo brief training. Are they qualified to determine whether a student after 12 years of learning is allowed to graduate?
The Department of Education publishes examples of how open-response questions are graded, but even these examples contain flaws (more). Some of the questions are confusing (more) or culturally biased (more). It is therefore not surprising that there are noticeable discrepancies between the MCAS results and the results of other standardized tests.
Test papers are not returned to students or teachers. The scoring formulas are not published, so just knowing which questions the kids answered incorrectly is not enough to determine how these questions affected the scores. This makes the MCAS much less effective as a diagnostic tool.
The real concern, however, is the possibility of errors in the grading. Regrettably, this is precisely what happened in other states. The errors were discovered by persistent parents, not the testing company or the state officials. In one publicized case (more), the testing company was reluctant to admit the error and the subsequent re-grading. Meanwhile, students who had actually done well were given failing grades, sent to summer school, and denied diplomas.
The MCAS is promoted as necessary to ensure that kids posses the basic skills of being able to read and write and do the basic math before they can graduate from high school. A quick review of the MCAS questions will easily reveal that the MCAS goes far beyond the basic skills, and describing it as a test of basic skills is simply false and misleading. The Education Reform Act requires a test of "a common core of skills" and "a variety of assessment instruments". The MCAS does not fulfill these requirements.
State officials argue that MCAS is required to facilitate accountability for the billions of dollars that the state spends on the education reform. Yet with all that money, we still have large disparities between schools districts, the MCAS scores remain low, and we have a severe shortage of teachers. Is the money being spent wisely? Although most parents would like to see high MCAS scores, they are even more concerned about smaller class sizes, equity among districts, qualifications of teachers, safer building, lower dropout rates, better extracurricular programs, and many other factors that go beyond the MCAS. Limiting information to only the MCAS scores is a way of avoiding accountability rather than providing a true picture of the education reform.
As taxpayers, we should demand genuine accountability that goes beyond one number and truly reflect concerns of parents and the general public. Where and how the money is being spent and what concrete improvements can the state show for that money?
The state directs accountability at schools and school districts, but by limiting the scope to only the MCAS, it prevents these schools and districts from demonstrating overall progress. As taxpayers, we should demand broader accountability, and we should demand the accountability from the state, from the Board of Education, because they are in charge of managing the education reform and disbursing the funds. Is the money being spent effectively, or is it nothing more than redistribution of local tax relief.
The huge disparity between the MCAS scores in inner-city and suburban schools clearly indicates that the state has a long way to go before it achieves the primary goal of education reform - equal quality of education for all children. Nevertheless, the state does not intend to wait for the equal quality and requires that all students pass the MCAS now as a condition for graduation. Inner-city students who may work hard, but attend schools known to be seriously deficient, may be denied diplomas. The state expects these students to work even harder to compensate for what their schools lack or fail to teach. It unfairly asks these students to do more than their counterparts in the suburbs. The burden of achieving equity has become student responsibility.
With a large number of students expected to fail the MCAS, one would expect the state to take serious steps towards alleviating the problem. Yet very little is happening. Gov. Swift asked for thousands of uncertified volunteers to help the 30,000 failing students. More recently, she proposed up to $1000 to be given to students who's schools failed them, so they can get their own help (if they can find it). These are not serious efforts. Most of the help comes through local districts. One sad aspect of local rather that statewide help is that it perpetuates educational inequalities, the elimination of which is the primary goal of education reform. Kids in well-off districts get better help than those in the inner-cities.
The one-size-fits-all MCAS does not measure the abilities of children with special needs or with learning disabilities. Many of these children are highly intelligent, but they cannot cope with simple reading or writing tasks, especially in the early grades. The MCAS has no diagnostic significance for these kids and is nothing more than a daunting chore and humiliation (more).
None of the board members have any K-12 teaching experience (Board of Education). Would you exclude medical doctors from the state's Medical Board? (David Driscall is a former teacher, but his position is the Commissioner of Education and is not officially a member of the Board).
The Governor, some legislators, a few CEOs of very large corporations, the Pioneer Institute (a conservative think tank), Mass Insight (associated with the Pioneer Institute). (One of the executives who supports the MCAS is the president of Fleet Bank, yet recently Fleet got the worst rating in a national survey of consumer satisfaction - perhaps business leaders should be subjected to a different type of MCAS.)
An unfortunate consequence of education reform is the loss of local control over education. Although a state-mandated common curriculum in core subjects is a good idea, parents resent a situation where the state controls nearly all aspects of education. They have seen a number of successful programs eliminated to give more time for test preparation. Student are coerced to attend after-school MCAS practice sessions, and in many cases are given excessive, repetitive homework.
Early in the formulation of the education reform, public participation was sought and encouraged, although little actual participation occurred (more). Once the reform became a law, there has been effectively no public input. The MCAS - its difficulty, its length, its one-size-fits-all characteristic, its high-stake nature - were all decided by appointed committees.