(Via Casey.) Back in the campaign, Kerry Healey warned that Patrick would back off of MCAS as a graduation requirement. Patrick said no, he supported it as a requirement, but he supported “teaching the whole child.” I took this to mean “MCAS and“, not “maybe MCAS”.
Well, this is from the text of the bill itself:
The Legislature hereby finds that the requirement established by the Board of Education that students may not graduate from high school without a certain minimum score on the MCAS Language Arts and Math standardized tests, even if students have met the competency requirements through other methods of assessment, including coursework, violates the intent and spirit of the Education Reform Act (ERA) of 1993.
That sounds like an end-run around the MCAS if there ever was one. This language sounds like a direct contradiction of what Patrick said in the campaign. Tell me why I’m wrong.
I don’t know much about this, but I’m under the impression that the MCAS test represents the bare minimum of what one ought to ba able to do in order to graduate from high school. And so I’m inclined to support it the way it is. Saying we’re “over-reliant” on the MCAS does not equate to “remove the requirement”.
Being a parent pre and post MCAS (19 and 10) I’ve witnessed how teaching has been negatively affected. My mother who is a retired teacher and favorable to MCAS initially even wrote a note to my youngest’s teacher after babysitting one week “your teaching to the test”. Children are not cookie cutters from the Valley of the Dolls. Each child has a different gift and strength. Some are more apt than others to be able to test well,some to do better in course work. In order for ALL children to be able to be successful we need to “assess” accordingly.
Charley, thanks for posting on this bill.
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First point, our bill is very much in line with what the Governor has been saying. We are asking for a multiple assessment system, one that doesn’t rely simply on the MCAS test, but does not eliminate the test. Here is what the Governor’s statement today said: ?The governor supports MCAS as a high school graduation requirement. However, he doesn?t believe it should be the sole assessment of student academic progress. He supports the development of additional assessment tools to measure other vital aspects of academic achievement.? I couldn’t agree more, and that is exactly what our bill calls for.
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Second point, the bill is very much intended to bring us back to the original goal of ’93 Ed Reform. At today’s hearing before the Joint Committee on Education, we had testifying in support of this bill Marty Kaplan, former Chair of the Board of Education, Frank Haydu, former Commissioner of Education, and Dave Magnani, former Senate Chair of Education, all of whom were responsible for passing Education Reform in 1993. All of them made the point that MCAS as a high-stakes test was not the intent of creating a “Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.”
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Former Senator Education Chairman David Magnani at today’s hearing said, “We sought a Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. Right now all we have is Massachusetts.”
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Below is Mr. Kaplan’s testimony, which I strongly encourage you to read, where he talks very well about why using MCAS as a high stakes test is NOT in line with what was intended.
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Last point, and most important. The goal of Ed Reform was to ensure quality education for all students, and to eliminate racial and economic disparities. That simply hasn’t been the case. High standards are critically important, and having accountability is essential, but a high-stakes test is not the only way, and in fact is not the best way. Using MCAS as a high-stakes test has done absolutely nothing to help the record high number of students now dropping out (a 32% increase in the drop-out rate since the MCAS was implemented as a graduation requirement). We can and must do better for all of our young people.
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Martin S. Kaplan
Former Chair of the
Massachusetts Board of Education (1992-96)
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Testimony Before the Joint Committee on Education
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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June 5, 2007
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My name is Martin Kaplan, and I served as Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Education 1992-1996. During that period, The Education Reform Act of 1993 (?ERA?) was being negotiated, and I presided over the Board during the initial years of its implementation. The Massachusetts Legislature can take great pride in many successes of ERA, and the effectiveness of much of its implementation.
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However, I believe we have gone way off track, failing to follow the mandate of the ERA, which required authentic assessment ?to measure outcomes and results regarding student performance, and to improve the effectiveness of curriculum and instruction?The system shall employ a variety of assessment instruments.? Subsequent Boards of Education and the Department of Education have instead adopted MCAS as a unitary evaluation system for all students. This reflects an unfortunate trend throughout the country, emphasizing testing rather than education. There is a difference, as I pointed out in a 1997 Boston Globe op-ed.
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While one can be pleased with improving test scores year-to-year, it would certainly be surprising if test scores didn?t improve given the iron-clad requirements on schools and teachers that test scores must improve, predictably leading to ?teaching to the test?. What a failure it would be if test scores didn?t improve, given the centrality of teaching to the test as part of our education system today.
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But what do those improved test scores really mean? They certainly mean increased ability to answer the type of multiple choice questions posed in the MCAS. But we have lost the ability of schools and teachers to make courses more imaginative and compelling, from science to history, all for the purpose of increasing the importance of high-stakes testing, as if that will prove that students are receiving a better education. I think the theory is ?we?re going to test the little suckers until their scores go up?.
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ERA provided the framework for authentic school and student evaluation, calling for ?a variety of assessment instruments?assessing whether students are meeting the academic standards…as much as practical, such instruments shall include consideration of work samples, projects and portfolios, and shall facilitate authentic and direct gauges of student performance.? Such assessment would give teachers the authority to evaluate their students based upon participation in class, written and other work throughout the year, traditional testing formats, as well as MCAS or other standardized multi-choice tests.
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This bill directs the Board of Education to create a High School Graduation Requirements Committee to develop multiple assessment systems to determine student competence. That was part of the original goal of ERA, and it has not been carried out.
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The education reform movement nationally was led by business leaders throughout the country, such as Jack Rennie in Massachusetts. They believed American schools had to accomplish more than teach students how to take tests. You might recall that literally thousands of Massachusetts residents participated in the development of the Common Core of Learning, required by ERA, and Dr. Madelaine Marquez and I served as Co-Chairs of that Commission, charged with developing standards of what students should know and be able to do when they graduate high school. We heard from people throughout the Commonwealth, especially business leaders, that those standards must require students to understand the importance of developing habits of perseverance, reliability, cooperation, teamwork and other values essential to success in any factory, any law firm, and any job that is of value to our economy today.
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None of those important values are tested by MCAS or any other standardized system. But teachers can evaluate and assess those values, and I think they should. For those who don?t trust teachers to do that, I would argue that there are easier and better paying jobs in our society than teaching in the schools of Massachusetts, and we should provide more respect and trust for our educators. I respect our teachers for their professionalism, dedication and ability, far more than I respect a system that requires ?teaching to the test?!
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The emphasis on one high-stakes standardized test eliminates the emphasis on the values and abilities of students that in fact were at the core of the business community?s support for education reform, and we have short-changed them and minimized the results of education reform. Testing isn?t education, and well-tested students haven?t learned those essential values that our businesses need for the workplace, and which our students need for successful careers.
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I believe this bill provides Massachusetts the opportunity to complete the education reform agenda through authentic and fair assessment of all students.
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I urge the Massachusetts Legislature to support this bill. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today.
Carl (can I call you Carl?), I’m still not at all convinced that any of this gets the Governor off the hook. Again, I thought he was pretty clear that he supported “MCAS and” not “MCAS or”. And your text is plainly “MCAS or”. Maybe that’s more consistent with the ERA, as Mr. Kaplan’s testimony indicates. But I don’t see how it’s consistent with what the Governor has been saying.
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I appreciate very much the idea of a genuinely comprehensive evaluation, and I’m sensitive to the soul- and mind-crushing effect of “teaching to the test”. But are we saying that if a student somehow reliably demonstrates “perseverance, reliability, cooperation, teamwork” — surely important things, I agree — then he doesn’t have to pass the MCAS?
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I really don’t mean to go reductio ad absurdum on you — I want to understand exactly what you’re proposing.
It isn’t a question of “MCAS and” versus “MCAS or.”
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I took the liberty of looking at Rep. Sciortino’s web site, where he has info on his MCAS bill.
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There’s a handy PDF that outlines the multiple assessment systems that other states have proposed or implemented.
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Washington’s state’s model (not yet implemented) uses their standardized test along with GPAs of local and state required courses, a final project, and a “high school and beyond” plan (whatever that is).
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So is that “MCAS and” or “MCAS or” It’s not “pass MCAS and also do XYZ, but it also isn’t “pass MCAS, or do XYZ.”
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It’s “pass MCAS, take your classes, and if you prove through all of those that you have achieved the state’s standards, then you graduate. If you have difficulty proving yourself in one area then there’s an opportunity to do so a different way. Oh, and by the way now you can take music classes again.”
from an objective assessment of what a child has learned to a subjective assessment. The teacher feels sorry for you, or wants to avoid a collision with the parent, the kid passes, alternatively, the kid fails.
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Whi is it that the classroom teacher is always the fall guy, no mater which way this football bounces? Damned if uou do, damned if you don’t, the teacher still gets screwed.
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Of course the poor kid who is caught in the middle is the individual who really takes the hit.
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Advance to the rear.
I would say that the MCAS actually enables “racial and economic disparities” (particularly the latter).
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Since school districts are publicly “labeled” with their MCAS scores, people know exactly which school systems to buy into and which ones to avoid. Given the choice, would you pick a school termed “failing” MCAS or one that is very successful at MCAS? If you have the means to choose, that means economic segregation, because the people left behind didn’t have the same means as you.
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I can see how you can parse Patrick’s words to mean what you seem to think they mean, though to me, they meant what Carl is saying here (and I’m not just saying that in light of this bill, it’s what I thought Patrick meant during the campaign too): MCAS as part or a more comprehensive assessment that would be required for graduation.
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Now, regardless of what you think Patrick meant, this bill is definitely a good idea đŸ™‚
Actually, I’m trying to parse as little as possible — just trying to take the plain meaning of his words. And I’ve been accused of “slicing it pretty thin” in Patrick’s favor.
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Yes, the merits of the idea are a different matter. I’m not convinced that softening the standards is the way to go.
Why is this bill a good idea. We are about to lower the bar yet again. Why not give children to to the very best they can, rather do just enough to get by and if they can’t or won’t get by, we’ll put in the fudge factor.
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Why is it that we must languish in the vast lake of mediocrity so that someones feelings aren’t hurt or their self esteem irreperably damaged.
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What happens to this kid after they get booted out into the cold cruel world? Not to worry. We have public assistance, unemployment, welfare, WIC, shelters, detox, needle programs, halfway houses, jails, prisons.
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We set people up to fail and then when they fall on their face,we rush to pick them up (not they themselves pick themselves up), and give them public assistance so that they may never succeed.
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Great.
This “setting kids up to fail” concept you bring up… I don’t think you actually understand it. Pinning their graduation on a single high stakes test is setting a significant number of kids up to fail – kids who actually could do well if we let them graduate. That’s just one of many reasons why this is a good idea, but it’s the one that jumped out at me as the irony in your comment.
I would be very concerned that this is a nice way to re-introduce the Lake Wobegone effect, in which all of our schools and all of our teachers are found to be doing just great, and we can’t accuratly measure anything, anyway.
A test can be reliable and valid, one of the other, or both. A reliable test produces consistent results. A valid test actually measures something. Psychometricians can make sure tests are reliable. The MCAS test is reliable, but what it measures is actually up for grabs. Just because a test is produced, it doesn’t mean it’s valid.
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Which is a better predictor of performance on MCAS: learning in school or socio-economic status? If SES is as good as or better as a predictor of a student’s test score, there is a validity problem.
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Mark
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That’s illogical, Mark.
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There is no test that would meet that criteria.
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Name a single math or English test, anywhere in the nation, where the average kid from a low-income family has outperformed the average kid from a high-income family?
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And if you can’t, then by your reckoning, no test is valid.
You’re looking at validity as an either/or proposition. Validity is more complicated than that. Start by looking at it on a continuum. Some tests are more valid than others.
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The SAT’s are completely reliable, but they are only valid predictors of how students do the first semester of college.
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Now think about SES and MCAS test scores. If we could predict tests scores by using a students SES, what would be the point of the test? To show what we already know? Why spend millions to find out something we already know?
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The question for the MCAS is, what, if anything, does it measure? Does it have any predictive value?
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Here’s my radical contention: MCAS, as it exists now, is an enforcement tool for standards decided by white middle and upper-middle class people to justify the success of white middle class schools, blame other ethnicities for failing to live up to our cultural expectations, and promote a market-based approach to education.
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Mark
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I teach high school English and have taught in other settings, as well, including middle school and Mass. Department of Correction medium- and maximum-security prisons. While I don’t have much of an issue with MCAS in English, which is skill-based, I do believe the content-based assessments, like math, science, and social sciences, are not valuable. Indeed, the 10th-grade English scores tell me virtually nothing meaningful (I teach upperclassmen only these days). I have seen kids score in the low proficient range on 10th grade MCAS–not even close to advanced–and have seen those same kids score 710 in critical reading and 690 in writing on SAT in 11th grade.
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In any event, MCAS, in general, is of no practical value for adjusting instruction or holding teachers (or students) accountable. It’s a feel-good panacea that makes it look like real “reform” is taking place when it isn’t.
Which of those other tests are used as single barriers to graduation? Any of those that are: shouldn’t be. You seem to be basing your whole objection on the idea that “most test must be good, dammit!” and that means we can trust this test to be the sole determiner of whether someone should graduate. Those of us who oppose that idea aren’t saying “we should find a more valid test for this purpose”, we’re saying “no one test ought to be used in this way!”
A little over five years ago, I sat in Gardner for about 12 hours for nearly the same hearing before the education committee. But then we were standing on the precipice, now we’ve gone over the cliff. Almost every direct stakeholder in education – students, teachers, parents, administrators – tried during that year to put the breaks on a flawed policy. I did my best in some kamikaze efforts from my position on the Board of Education.
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There were many reasons that so many opposed the graduation requirement on the MCAS as well as other flaws in the system. At its root, the MCAS as implemented violates the intent of the ERA. Chapter 69 1I called for multiple measures “The system shall employ a variety of assessment instruments…” Rather than craft multiple measures, the state designed a single test that includes a couple different question formats (multiple choice, short answer, and essay) and slapped the word “Comprehensive” onto the name. At best, the MCAS was a lazy way of implementing the law; at worst, it was a deliberate choice to achieve a variety of outcomes not necessarily in the best interests of education.
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To your “minimum level of education” comment –
The MCAS is regarded as a ‘standards-based’ assessment rather than a ‘standardized’ assessment like the SAT because it is scored against benchmarks rather than being norm-referenced. Testing wonkishness and wordplay aside, the MCAS is standardizing education and its multiple benchmarks rolled into one make it anything but a minimum level assessment. Focus on the test has harmed the education of students on educational paths that are not the common, college-prep road. The impacts on vocational education, special education, and ESOL education have been negative overall. Moreover, while it aims to have the minimum passing score reflect a base level competency, the MCAS includes questions that test at much higher levels as well. It is easy for policy makers and test designers to seperate the easy parts from the hard parts of the test, but students cannnot see this. Picture yourself running a track with many different sized hurdles. Some of them are higher than you’ve ever cleared. You could theoretically go around them and handle just the low hurdles, but you can’t tell me that the high hurdles wouldn’t hurt your time.
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We can’t do away with the assessment system now; NCLB forbids it. But, we need to fix education for students by removing the high stakes, creating multiple measures, and using the assessment system as it was intended – as an ASSESSMENT of the education system. The question remains whether this is fair to five or so classes of high school students who have lived through the high stakes requirement. I believe we as a commonwealth owe them an apology and some redress.
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James Madden
BOE member 01-02
I know that MCAS is supposed to based on benchmarks ( criterion-referenced, rather than norm-referenced). My question: what happens after benchmarks are referenced? I believe actual teachers choose the benchmarks, but doesn’t norming enter the picture somewhere? I can’t find any information on this. I can’t help feeling that there is some sort of curve in there.
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Thanks,
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Mark
The raw score is adjusted. I believe there is a system that seeks to adjust based upon the difficulty of various questions, but you would need to talk to the people in the DOE to get the full answer.
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The curriculum frameworks upon which the test is designed are designed by committees that usually include education policy people, teachers (often retired or out of the classroom), administrators, and others. The test questions are designed and scored by an outside firm. There is not as much teacher input as anyone would like. I don’t think many teachers would agree that “actual teachers choose the benchmarks.”
Long time no see – it’s Ryan Adams, Chair of Outreach =)
Can you make this into its own user post? Thanks.
I will say that when I was in High School, I served on the State Student Advisory Council to the Board of Education (SSAC) and was on the Executive Board. There, I became very close to the MCAS – both in terms of a philosophical look as well as the nuts and bolts (i.e. what exact things should be on the exam). One of the primary reasons I was against the MCAS then was becuase it violated the spirit of the ’93 Ed Reform Act. Yes, one of the goals was to create a test, but that test was never supposed to be the only means of graduating. In fact, there was specific language (that, unforunately I don’t have available at this point in my life) that indicated just having one test violated the original Ed Reform Act.
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Because students learn in different ways, it’s important to offer different methods of testing. For example, one of the primary means of which the SSAC advocated for was to create a portfolio option, where students would have to give a presentation that would display the exact type of things they learned to a committee. Why would that, in any way, be less worthy than a multiple choice exam? A portfolio could be far more dynamic than a simple yest, yet require a lot of work, research and learning. Furthermore, it would be an option for students that had interests that differed than the standard curriculum on the MCAS – which, I can assure you, is quite circumstancial. Who’s to say what is on it are the things people need to know when they graduate? It gets especially bad in the history section, which eventually will count for graduation as well.
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Furthermore, I’d like the challenge the point you made about basic standards. I don’t think the MCAS really is that sort of exam. It’s very challenging, for example, for a Voc school to teach everything that’s on the MCAS and still teach their students their vocation. However, it’s not the advanced algebraic equations that are necessary for a carpenter to know, it’s carpentry. The MCAS is far from an ideal exam and certainly hasn’t done much to actually improve education in Massachusetts. Teaching to the exam won’t make our students more intelligent – and it is taking time away from other essential areas for human growth, such as something I’m sure you can relate to: music. All of these classes are viewed as “extra” when it’s math students have to pass and therefore we’re really robbing people of their chance at an equal opportunity to learn music, or art, or vocational skills or anything of the like.
is quoted just above this reply LOL.
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Wow, my memory isn’t all that bad =p
Thanks for your post. I seem to have a knack for killing conversation.
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Mark