MASSACHUSETTS VOTERS are being asked this fall whether or not a passing score on MCAS should continue to be a requirement for high school graduation. If you believe, as I do, that MCAS has served our students and schools extremely well over the years, you should vote no on Question 2.
In 1993 Massachusetts enacted a sweeping education reform law. The law reflected a bargain between the state’s political and business leaders and its educators, trading increased funding for increased accountability for results. Political leaders have kept their side of the bargain, providing billions of new dollars for education over these past three decades. Now the state’s teachers, represented by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, want to renege on their side of the bargain.
Prior to the 1993 law, Massachusetts left it to each local school district to set its own graduation requirements. In the absence of any statewide testing program, there was no way of determining whether a high school diploma from an urban high school certified the same level of foundational academic skills as one from a suburban school.
MCAS, an assessment system ranked by a national education organization, Achieve, that reviewed state standards and assessments as the strongest in the country, helped move our K-12 educational system from good to great. Not only has Massachusetts routinely outperformed other states in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), but we’ve done extremely well on international assessments as well.
Contrary to the claims of the MTA, only a few hundred students annually are denied a high school diploma because of their inability to pass the MCAS. The overwhelming majority of students who do not graduate are kept back because they have failed to accumulate enough credits or to meet other local requirements for graduation.
The principal argument that MTA offers is that MCAS is anxiety-producing for students and requires teachers to spend too much time on test-prep, time that could otherwise be devoted to deeper teaching and learning. It may be that some teachers spend too much time prepping for MCAS, but if teachers are teaching content well-aligned with state standards, their students will do just fine without test prep.
As for anxiety, yes, it’s true that testing makes some people anxious. But if graduates are going to go on to competitive colleges or eventually to law or medical school, they will have to take and pass tests. This is true also for those seeking licensure or certification as IT tech workers or radiology technicians or welders. Testing is a fact of life, so better to get used to it while in school.
The irony is that for the vast majority of students there are no real stakes attached to MCAS. Unless you are in danger of not graduating, what is the incentive for taking the test seriously? Unlike the SAT, where a student’s score counts in the college admission process, MCAS scores are only used for school-level reporting. This means that it’s primarily teachers and school leaders who feel the accountability pressure, for schools with persistently weak MCAS results can be sanctioned by the state. A fairer accountability system would hold students as well as teachers accountable for performance.
This flaw in the system is a function of a larger problem: only students who are competing for seats in highly selective colleges have an incentive to work hard in high school. Only six percent of college students attend institutions that accept fewer than 25 percent of applicants. Most students attend colleges that accept at least 75 percent of applicants. This is a uniquely American problem. In most other nations, students work hard in high school because there are many fewer universities and access to the most desirable schools and programs is heavily based on test scores.
I can certainly imagine plausible alternatives to MCAS. Some states have uniform end-of-course exams based on common syllabi. Other states have over the years experimented with more performance-based assessment systems incorporating student projects and portfolios. These different approaches all have their advantages and disadvantages. But to eliminate the assessment system we have without having an alternative to put in place is utterly irresponsible.
The predictable outcome of leaving each district on its own to set graduation standards is that the already unacceptable gaps in student performance based on race and class will only get wider.
Bob Schwartz began his career as a high school teacher and principal, later served as education advisor to Boston Mayor Kevin White and to Gov. Michael Dukakis, and more recently was a professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. From 1997-2002 he served as the first president of Achieve, Inc.
The post Scrapping MCAS would be irresponsible appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.