I don’t mean agenda in a negative fashion. I think that, as Will alludes, schools now attempt to produce citizens — but more than that — they seek to produce healthy individuals. People who are given opportunities and a level playing field, and have not only a fine education but strong character.
Really, who else is concerned with children from a governmental point of view? Civic organizations are adult-exclusive or adult-centered for the most part. Even other government bodies do little. In our state DSS is given the charge of watching children’s safety. But I think many of us have come to realize through knowledge of a case how bad things have to be before DSS seriously intervenes.
DSS is made up of great people, who get up at three in the morning to enter a home with the police to pull a young child out of an abusive, often criminal situation. But too often, by the time they intervene, it’s too late. Kids bounce around from house to house. Often barely welcomed because of the check they bring (but often, not).
In my building, we’re doing a heck of a lot more than education:
- Ensure proper nutrition, by encouraging students to take advantage of free/reduced lunch and breakfast programs. (fed law)
- Ensure good health through scoliosis screenings, updated physicals, and immunizations. (state law)
- Ensure good health by providing information on drug use and abuse, the dangers and precautions of sexual activity, and nuritional habits.(state law)
- Ensure good health by monitoring students for abrasions and incisions that indicate violence, whether from guardians or other situations. (state law)
- Ensure good health by monitoring students for signs of illicit drug or alcohol use. (state law)
- Ensure good psychological health through monitoring (yes, visually and consciously) students for signs of depression, including cutting and other self-abusive behavior. (State law)
- Ensure good psychological health by reporting any rumored or averred psychological abuse from guaridans. (state law)
- Ensure readiness to learn by chasing after and providing learning tools. I bought my own markers and copy paper all year. And will next year. Not to mention other learning tools. I have spent $80 of my own money on the day’s lesson. That’s about the day’s pay.(local budget)
- Ensure readiness to learn by monitoring for bullying among students, that can also lead to psychological concerns. (state law)
- Ensure readiness to learn by watching students for signs of an undiagnosed learning disability, and reporting any to medical staff for follow-up.
- Ensure citizenship by implicitly and explicitly including respect and diversity as positive values throughout my curriculum. (state guidelines)
- Ensure citizenship through stunts such as designated days when all curriculum work stops to focus on things like the Constitution, regardless or immediate curricular relevance. (federal law)
- Ensure citizenship by steering children away from abusive situations, and modeling proper inter-personal behavior, particularly for students from abusive homes.
- Ensure readiness to learn by exposing students to a variety of field trips, with the attendant paperwork. (local policy)
I love my students. Dearly. And not to boast, but many of them love me back. I teach eighth-graders and get about five hugs a day (always in public view). And I do this all, and it’s worth it.
But none of this is on the MCAS. None of this is easily done in the roughly 60 minutes I have per day to prepare it. I’m not complaining.
Nor am I pointing the finger at parents. Lots of great parents out there, including many great parents who make difficult situations work.
Any time a child slips through the cracks of the family structure, we pick it up. And despite the sensationalism in the yellow press (Herald, Enterprise) we do a darn good job.
But none of this gets entered into the back to basics approach, where average students are demanded to be extraordinary. None of this is factored into fond dreams of a non-existent past when students came home to two parents to help them with homework. One parent is often out of the picture, and the second works another job.
I teach middle school — I’ve had several students spend time in jail cells this year. And they didn’t pass the MCAS. And somehow, that’s my fault.
I don’t have a problem with the MCAS as concept, and have I’d say a moderate problem with its execution. But that’s for another time.
As I said (and suggested) in my comments here and here, MCAS has very little do with what goes on in a school every day between students and faculty. MCAS seems to matter most, as I said earlier, to those who don’t really deal with it. I taught 8th-grade English for many years and now teach at the high school level, and the amount of time we spend worrying about MCAS in the grand scheme of things is negligible.
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It. Just. Isn’t. That. Big. A. Deal.
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What is a big deal is the exploring, learning, challenging, caring, and debating that goes on in a classroom every day. In the course of my day, I will have discussed myriad topics, both in lecture and in casual conversation, with students. Just today, if I think about what came up in class, I can quickly come up with this list: Huxley, Steinbeck, Orwell, misogyny, perseveration, the San Bushmen, tee-shirts as activism, date rape, masculinity and violence, cognition and tactile development in toddlers, a three-letter word for “annoy,” dystopias, lupus erythematosis, and the hygiene habits of other cultures. On another day, the free-association stuff veers all over the map, and we’re off again. We cover our curriculum and have fun along the way.
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Kids do want to travel, explore, and learn. Along the way they’ll learn how to read, write, and think critically.
the millions being spent on MCAS? I bet we can’t even calculate the amount dollars associated with lost time teachers are teaching to the test. I believe the money time and teacher resources can be better spent with equal or better results. I believe the only ones really making out are those who make the materials for the test.
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Hi CB
there’s really no way to teach to the English test. Either kids can read and answer questions based on what they’ve read, write a composition, and answer an open response question based on a passage or they can’t. English MCAS is a skill-based assessment versus a content-based assessment. I imagine that there are other teachers, however, in other subjects that do teach to the test, though.
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Hi to you, too……I’m thinking I must know you? lol
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Yes, some teachers/schools drill their kids with practice questions, which of course accomplishes nothing. It’s unclear how widespread this is. I’d be inclined to give teachers credit – most of them see it Iris’ way.
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In math, the only way to score better is more actual knowledge of math. For example, Grade 10 is geometry and algebra, plus dusting off lots of basic arithmetic – fractions, percentages, etc.
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2. Test questions are available here and practice books at any Barnes & Noble.
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Before people go into their knee-jerk jihad against MCAS, they should actually review entire exams.
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Here is a 2005 essay question for Grade 10 MCAS:
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“In literature, characters often demonstrate responsibility or a lack of responsibility. From a work of literature you have read in or out of school, select a character who demonstrates responsibility or a lack of responsibility. In a well-developed composition, identify the character, show how the character demonstrates responsibility or a lack of responsibility, and explain how the characterâs behavior affects the work of literature.”
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3. It’s worth noting that MCAS tests were primarily developed by MA teachers and reviewed by panels of MA teachers.
I live in the town you teach in, I made the motion to give your students some $$$$ for a field trip to the statehouse lol
I wasn’t parsing out any particular section of the test. I was speaking generally. Do you know if money is spent on remediation for the English portion of the test in any grade?
grant money can come down from the state if the scores are low enough, but that’s not all that common these days from what I understand. Sometimes there’s money set aside in the school budget for MCAS remediation, but that depends on the financial health of the district. Most towns that have a sizable population that needs remediation will set aside money irrespective of the state’s willingness to subsidize. For example, we ran both English and Math remediation classes for kids this year; I expect we’ll do the same next year.
I knew it in my gut, DG. I spend my lunch reading around the blogs these days. Things are winding down so much around here.
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You are too funny. 😉
Its Joe, hows moral in the high school?
Home now.
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Sorry–at least I’m in the right church if not the right pew. I’m sorry, Joe, about your loss. I can’t believe they elected that guy. Positively surreal.
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Morale is poor. We’re reduced to car washes to pay for music. Some students I heard during directed study were angry today as they’d heard that the rings for the football players and cheerleaders cost of $22K. I don’t know if that’s true.
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There is a core of activist students who are working hard. Tee-shirts have appeared courtesy of a parent, and there is some more activism planned for the end of next week, as I understand it. We’re outta that loop.
It is also worth noting that in high school, where MCAS determines graduation, it gets much more attention and time. It’s sort of funny that this requirement for graduation is given at the end of 10th grade–implying that 11th and 12th grade curriculum are extraneous (of course, one must pass these classes to get a diploma). But for the students who fail in 10th grade, there will be re-takes, scheduled once in fall and once in spring, the following years. The thing is, kids who struggle with standardized tests will take several hours to finish because they desperately want to pass, and can’t be confident in their responses. A kid who struggles with MCAS will often miss classes many times just by putting their best effort into the re-takes.
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And of course, these are the kids who really can’t afford to miss a class.
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This high-stakes test does not do what its backers say it does, and it would be wise to remove the graduation requirement. It’s fine if the school district issues diplomas with, say, a golden stamp for MCAS passers, or issues two kinds of diplomas.
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But when policies force poor or black or hispanic kids to drop out and get a GED, those students miss out on all the school functions listed above–and these students are the ones who need those functions most of all.
Joel illustrates strongly the damaging side of the MCAS pendulum. Others have spoken in its favor, but I’m wondering, do we have hard data that MCAS has had a positive effect? How have MA students performed on national tests in some year before MCAS, and how have they performed in recently. Shouldn’t a standardized test live and die by its own statistics? (I’m avoiding the ironies of questioning whether MA students have had any time left for national standardized testing now that they are so busy with MCAS)
This is partly a cop-out that I don’t find the data myself; my excuse or reason is, my computer is really slow these days, even posting here is painfully slow. (To be remedied soon) Sorry. But maybe others already have something to toss out…
(Sorry to get this back on MCAS, the main post brought up a new and really cool topic … in a word, I agreed 🙂
If a student fails Grade 10 on all 4 retakes, the school can file an appeal. So far 3000 of 5000 have been granted.
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The appeal allows teachers and school officials to identify those who really do have the skills but for whatever reason can’t pass the test. Most kids who fail MCAS 5 times simply do not have the skills, and therefore do not appeal (i.e., they can barely read and write).
Interesting to hear these perspectives from teachers. There are MCAS critics who damn the test as totally taking control over public education, and here we have two teachers who are doing much teaching that is unrelated to the MCAS.
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As for why the MCAS is given in 10th grade, it only requires a minimal amount of proficiency in math and language arts, that most kids can easily pass in 10th grade, but giving it that early allows the kids who don’t pass the opportunity to get extra help and additional attempts to pass the test. Schools have a wide latitude in terms of what they teach, but they should at least teach kids basic math and writing.
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For an eye-opening experience, if you search through the DOE website you will find samples of student work from past MCAS exams, and you can see what it takes to pass MCAS, and just how low that threshold is, and how poorly prepared some kids are. That any kids without learning disabilities or language barriers are unable to write sufficiently well to pass the MCAS test is a crime. Why doesn’t that outrage people here? What kind of future do those kids have?
Middle school / junior high school teachers are in luck with respect to MCAS, because it’s not a graduation requirement for their school. They can still teach as their school and they see fit, and it’s a much better environment.
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School systems with more money are also luckier, compared to others, than they were before MCAS. They’re the ones that get to continue to devote significant resources to things that aren’t on the MCAS, even in high school.
Cos,
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I don’t really agree that we can teach as we see fit. This is true to a degree in the humanities, but given that math and English/language arts are cumulative, we still get hammered on not following the curriculum. And “failing” the MCAS (even if it’s a small subgroup — Weston failed last year! Weston!) still gets you audits and on lists and such fun at any level.
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Trust me, I have the curriculum frameworks posted in my classroom, with a neon yellow arrow marked “we are here” that moves around throughout the year.
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Frankly, I expect that if this NCLB.MCAS nonsense last beyond the end of this decade, they’ll start counting the MCAS in middle school as well. THat’s the stated attention of many of its supporters.
Far too many kids are poorly prepared. It is outrageous–and sometimes the preponderance of it was numbing for me.
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The problem as I see it, YDD, is that when the test is used as a threat (teachers threaten students with no diploma while the state threatens teachers and administrators with firing/taking over if not enough students pass), these schools and students respond in the ways humans always respond to threats.
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They either rush to quick fixes (like test prep books that deal specifically with the formula of test items) or they get out of the way (i.e. drop out).
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An alternative method to this high-stakes test could be having student work be more public. Having portfolios of homework, tests, essays, problem-solving projects readily available for parents, administrators, and other students to examine. This would require students to do more revising in the course of their class work… but revision is actually something adult workers have to do a lot.
If dept. chairs and principals made a habit of visiting classrooms, watching student presentations, then having meetings afterward to discuss student work not just for one hour per semester but more like twice a month, I think that might get better coordination of curriculum (which as you pointed out has been a success of the MA reforms).
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The reason this doesn’t get done now has to do with the vast number of meetings administrators are called to attend. The public dignitary side of a principal’s job can dominate the educator side of it. And sadly, if a principal or vice principal says “No, I’m going to your meeting, I’m going to stay in my building and observe the learning that’s going on” then that person can be fired for insubordination.
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Oftentimes those meetings are to examine results of MCAS tests from a few months before, and to plan strategies to deal with it, but I think the time gap and the aggregation of scores probably obscure the fact that problems are with individual students.
The issue of punishing students for their failure to achieve when it is really the school’s fault is my biggest concern, but I just don’t know any other way of getting schools to focus on those kids who aren’t learning to read and write. And I think it is working.
well taken, Its kinda like the nuturing parent vs the strict disciplinarian. I respond better to the nurturing parent
partly because it’s the gold standard in educational testing, and partly because schools don’t teach to it.
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In Texas, while the state test scores went up, the NAEP hardly changed. So it’s more likely that teachers taught to the test, and student learning didn’t really improve. Largely what Texas has done is kick out the black and hispanic kids who scored poorly, and the averages went up.
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I know that NAEP went up for MA in 4th and 8th grade–I think that’s what Dukakis spoke about at the convention.
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I’ll need to take some time to read up to see if that is what Mass. is doing. I hope not.
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But back to your first sentence: Instead of paying big money to a corporation to buy lotsa test booklets, we could hire auditors to examine student work in classrooms, comparing it against standards.
of student progress to be sure; however, a more refined indicator is MAT-8. Because districts have to pay for it, though, it’s not used with any regularity across the Commonwealth. The DOE would be better served by simply administering MAT-8, which is normed nationally, and is a more consistent indicator of student progess on a yearly basis.
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MCAS is not designed to capture refined performance indicators longitudinally and cannot be used to compare cohorts of students except at multiyear intervals. For example, a comparison of Group A’s Grade 7 ELA and Group A’s Grade 10 ELA may be interesting, but, because of the gap in instructional years, the quality of any information gleaned has degraded significantly. Nothing of value can be derived from such a comparison if one is trying to diagnose curricular shortcomings or strengths. There’s also a three-year lag time built in, so the instrument is too lumbering. Gaack. Worse, comparisons of Grade 7 ELA last year and Grade 7 ELA this year are completely and utterly worthless given the differences in test groups, which can be substantial, especially in smaller schools.
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We should just go to MAT-8 and call it a day.
as long as it is used to improve a students education and not as a graduation requirement. Joel, you mean actually having someone perfrom an assessment of students? Tongue is firmly planted…………………..
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Read more about the award winning Mather public school, gives some great context. By the way, they used to take the MAT-8. Not sure if they still do.
I do appreciate the heartfelt made by sabutai as a teacher on the inside of our decaying public education system. I must say though that most of the examples he posted were fairly obvious to most of us. The MCAS or any standardized tests for the matter dont teach good citizenship, they cannot impart appreciation for arts, literature, and culture, and frankly neither can the SAT but colleges still use it. Why? Because it is a good neutral assessment of skills, grades can fluctaure based on weighted vs unweighted, ranked vs unranked, different districts, or simply easier or harder teachers. SATs and MCAS level the playing field by being based completely on skill level and mastery, granted the SATs are a poor test in the sense that unlike the ACT they are not directly based on school information but I digress. A test serves to evaluate skill not to impart it, unfortunately our politicians feel that more tests will suddenly make our children more educated. Instead the MCAS should be used as a tool, and if used properly the bulk of our students can pass it. Instead local school districts have the freedom to use elementary MCAS information which are low stakes test or to discard them.
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As of today I am a former student in the Cambridge Public School system (I am graduating tommorow!) and a former student member of its School Committee so i understand the district pretty well. Currently we do NOT use the MCAS information in the elementary level particualrly well, specifically which kids repeatedly fail to meet MCAS reading standards, when we should be actively using that to ensure that those that fail the test in 4th grade will pass it in 6th grade, those that fail in in 6th grade will pass it in 8th grade, and everyone will pass it in high school when it does count. Expanding the test to include history and sciences is a very foolhardy idea designed by professional politicians rather than professional educators. Cambridge and the State Ed Department should be willing and ready to use the statistics and information and design remedial courses around it. The main problem with public schools is that repeatedly kids are socially promoted and problems are passed on until they get too big to solve. Getting rid of high stakes tests will make the situation worse, imposing high stakes tests without the stated goal of ensuring that everyone passes and with corresponding classes and programs to meet that goal simply is failing our kids.
JConway, you have an interesting perspective here.
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As you know, Cambridge spends the most per student, but has some of the lowest MCAS results, particularly for African-American students.
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What do you think would most help those students truly become college-ready, able to take some of the most challenging (AP etc) courses at Rindge and Latin?
I have a slightly different perspective on English grammar. (By the way, I teach physics.)
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Grammar is the tool that allows you to understand small distinctions in meaning. Without that tool, science, engineering, and the other areas that maintain our standard of living are inaccessible to our students.
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I also have the privilege of grading student writings at the 20+ page length.
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The good students are very good.
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The weaker students, and I teach at an expensive private technical university, cannot write at the Junior High School level. Subjects and verbs differ in number. (Actually, when I went through, number was a grade school level issue.) Other sentences have no verb. ‘This’ becomes a pronoun, which like other pronouns often lacks an antecedent. The concept of parallelism, one of the most powerful tools for reinforcing coherent expression in the English language, is not known. ‘Amount’ and ‘number’ are interchanged. ‘Because’ is bloviated to the illiterate ‘due to the fact that’.
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I could go on for a very long time on this.
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I’m afraid that I read ‘we’re doing a heck of a lot more than education’ and hear ‘we’re doing a heck of a lot instead of education.’
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There are reasons that the private and home school movements are advancing, and religious issues are only a modest part of them.
I am one of the parents in the growing homeschooling movement. The MCAS is one of the reasons we homeschool. A curriculum based on preparing kids to answer test questions doesn’t allow for freedom in learning for the kids or for the teachers. Standards based education takes the creativity out of teaching. The MCAS discriminates based on income-the wealthy kids do well. The results of the MCAS have consistently shown that family income is the most important determination of how students will do on the test. Even with the increased education funds to our schools as a result of the Education Reform Law, there is not a level playing field for poor and minority students. Each year 6000 kids who fail the MCAS are not allowed high school diplomas and are left to not furthering their education in most cases. A tough love punitive approach to education doesn’t work.
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Why homeschool? Because there is freedom for my child to study what he wants. Because children who homeschool typically do better on standardized tests surpassing schooled kids by approximately 2 grade levels. Because a civics class can mean going to the statehouse to attend a rally in favor of same sex marriage. It can mean marching against the war in Iraq. It means being able to travel to foriegn countries for extended time frames. It is a lifestyle that our family enjoys. No, we are not right wing fundamentalists who homeschool because of religious reasons. We are progressives who see another way of educating our child.
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I appreciate teachers like the author of this post who clearly have children in mind and have come to the profession wanting to make change in the world. The system which includes the MCAS is making that difficult.
Civics isn’t even a required class for our public schools (its offered in some schools, but as an elective. In NY, where my friend teaches, Civics, Economics, Speech & Health are all required to graduate. We should have students going on class trips to the statehouse learning what it means to be a civic minded citizen. The issue is the MA curriculm & the funding.
Intro/Government was a requirement in Virginia, is it not required in MA?
Consists of an elective in twelfth grade. Also, a three-week detour in the midst of American History I (taught freshman year in most places). That’s all.
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Frankly, there’s too much history to try to get done — the usual schedule is as follows:
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Grade 5 Town/County/State history (including most of what they’ll ever learn about pre-Columbian America)
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Grade 6 World geography outside North America.
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Grade 7 Ancient History (cavemen-fall of Rome) MCAS – doesn’t count – 20% grade 7, 80% grade 6
Grade 8 World History I (fall of Rome-Enlightenment)
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Grade 9 World History II (Imperialism – this afternoon 9/11)
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Grade 10 US History I (Colonization – Civil War)
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Grade 11 US History II (Reconstruction – 9/11) MCAS – will count for class of 2011 – all US History
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Grade 12 Electives
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Grade 11 US History II
if you wish to graduate a bunch of technical writers. What about the rest of the students? Do they need to have the skills needed to write 20+ page papers to be a musician, artist, bank teller, small busines owner? Have you even considered “weaker” students may have another type of intelligence? Please, link the facts to your last sentence, or is a personal observation?