The MCAS rears its ugly head

I’ve been working on an article about Ted Kennedy, but I was out the other night celebrating the signing of Dustin Pedroia to a long-term contract and got to talking to a woman about the MCAS. I confess to becoming sidetracked. In case you’re not from Massachusetts, MCAS is short for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. And this is short for a collection of standardized tests designed to assess the educational condition of the schools, districts and students of Massachusetts. (In other words, it’s all about Massachusetts politics.)

All public school students in Massachusetts, including students with disabilities and those of limited English proficiency, must take the MCAS. Sophomores must pass the tests in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics in order to receive a high school diploma (Science has just been added as a graduation requirement). In fairness to the student, he or she has five chances to pass. And that was the point this woman made the other night: Our schools have become nothing more than training facilities for passing the MCAS. This hit her hard on a personal level and it was clear from speaking with her that this was the first time that the MCAS had a direct effect upon her.

The woman (we shall refer to her as Ann) was asked to attend an IEP (individualized education plan) meeting about her twelve-year-old daughter and one of the recommendations was to move her daughter from her small-group math environment back into the main classroom. When Ann mentioned that this was attempted before without much success, the teacher’s comment was that her daughter was not being exposed to enough of the material that would be appearing on the MCAS. Period. Ann, never having been a supporter of MCAS, took the bait. When she continued to ask questions about the move and made the comment that the move was being made to accommodate the test, not her daughter’s needs, one of the meeting participants commented, “That’s where we are right now.” Ann’s final rebuttal was that her daughter’s grade might suffer. Her teacher piped up again that, “her exposure to the material is, to me, more important than the grade.”

Ann thought about that logic for a moment. First of all, what the hell does ‘exposure to’ in educational terms? Does it actually mean ‘teaching’? From Ann’s perspective, it was nice of her teacher to award her daughter a theoretical pass on the grade but, unfortunately her school very much cares about her daughter’s grade. Two failing grades in one year will result in the student having to repeat the grade. The long and short of the story is that Ann ended up agreeing to the switch and now she was unsure about that decision. She didn’t give discussion a chance. She made a few more offhanded comments, wished us all goodnight, and left. Since my celebration mate was now in the process of playing a game of pool, I decided to make some notes about what I needed to learn about the MCAS.

The MCAS was designed to meet the requirements of the Educational Reform Act of 1993. However, the Education Reform Act of 1993 stated “the system shall employ a variety of assessment instruments” to measure student proficiency. Under that definition, the MCAS was intended to be just one of a variety of measurements of the Massachusetts educational system. The problem is that it became the entire system in Massachusetts. Nobody took it any further. There is no ‘variety’ when it comes to measuring student proficiency. There’s only the MCAS: A series of standardized tests designed to assess proficiency in math, English, history and the sciences that is applied across the board to all levels of students in all situations. So much for taking into consideration ‘the whole child’ approach to education.

Every year the results are announced with great fanfare and then the appropriate amount of spin is applied from several groups possessing differing opinions. Here’s a summary of what we took away from the 2008 results:

• Results in the English portion of the test were disappointing;
• On the other side, the Math scores hit historic highs at all grade levels;
• The percentage of sophomores passing the MCAS on the first try fell for the first time because thousands failed the Science portion (a new graduation requirement)

The story is essentially the same every year. We have mixed results. Ann made me realize that critics aren’t without their supporting facts. Critics of MCAS argue that the schools have aspired and achieved “surface learning.” The students are trained and conditioned to learn for the test and they learn how to pass the test. What about those who simply do not do well on standardized tests? Is there validity to that argument? Critics are also quick to point out that a preliminary assessment indicates that half of the state’s public schools have failed to make adequate progress toward meeting federal No Child Left Behind standards for two years in a row. Great. Massachusetts cannot meet the standards specified in what has to be the greatest hoax on the country’s educational system: No Child Left Behind. Just one of the Bush administration follies. While many states have discussed opting out of the No Child program, taking actual steps to do so would mean the state would give up a substantial amount of federal educational funding…when the federal government chooses to fund No Child Left Behind (which is neither consistently or at the appropriate level).

So, MCAS remains the key educational measurement system in Massachusetts. And now there’s talk of expanding it to cover science experiments, group projects and oral presentations. According to state education secretary Paul Reville, employers are saying that we are not preparing our students to do the jobs of the present and the future. We are apparently failing on the ‘critical thinking’ skills. The state originally focused on these ‘critical thinking’ skills but many schools stopped teaching them as the state began to shift and put more emphasis on ‘content knowledge’ and less on ‘critical thinking.’ This is where ‘politics’ took precedence over what was best for the students. Ten years later, there appears to be a gap. Now the powers that be are trying to get it right by going back and refocusing on the ‘critical thinking’ skills they should never have abandoned.

It is clear that some type of educational assessment system is required. However, should those directives come from the national level, or is it up to the individual states to set their own standards? Many states did not take kindly to the Education Reform Act of 1993, believing it to be intrusive. And why is it that those working on this system cannot find a way to marry ‘content knowledge’ with ‘critical thinking’? After all, isn’t that what life is all about anyway? It’s a combination of the two. Marrying the two and making it all work requires that you work with others and seek out the information you need to make a good decision, whatever the situation. This isn’t rocket science.

This could be the impetus to improve the MCAS system so that it serves both the state and, more importantly, the student. Only time will tell if there are enough ‘critical thinkers’ around to recognize an opportunity when it presents itself.