This is a public service message brought to you by a concerned citizen and Boston Public School teacher. It has come to my attention that ALL students with disabilities, designated as 0.4, automatically receive a warning score on the MCAS. On the DESE (Department of elementary and secondary education) website many schools that serve high populations of 0.4 students have proficiency rates that paint an unfairly disturbing picture. Warning percentages are inflated, proficiency rates are deflated, and achievement gaps are wildly exacerbated as SWD (Students with disabilities) fit into multiple demographics.

0.4 is a SWD designation, often referred to as substantially separate. 0.4 students do not actually take the MCAS, but their teachers submit portfolios. These portfolios are scored either “progressing” or “not progressing” by the state (usually a temp worker). Yet these same students count for the MCAS population. Even though they do not even take the exam (many are autistic) they are designated as “warning”. Boston then develops charts and figures showing failure rates of whole BPS schools and specific demographic failure rates of said schools. For instance, an African American 0.4 student who is also an ELL and receives a free lunch fits into the following demographic categories: SWD, AA, ELL, Free/reduced lunch. All 0.4 kids fit into multiple demographic categories. Including automatic warning scores into the data exacerbates achievement gaps, drastically lowers proficiency rates and raises warning rates for schools with a high percentage of 0.4 kids. My school, the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester, currently has a 0.4 population of 21%. So, even if every other child in the school, including non 0.4 SWD (10% of school), were to pass the MCAS, we would have a 21% failure rate. Next year, if one researched our school on DESE the data would show 21% warning rate. This policy is used by BPS to demonize schools unfairly. Morally, it is repugnant.

Charter schools do not take 0.4 students:

MTA Study Looks at Charter School Success

Charter proponents are still touting recent studies that “prove” charter superiority. These studies compare and contrast real charter school students with “imaginary” similar students in BPS. They use a fancy equation, look at demographic data, and then compute the results. However, the brainiacs at Harvard and MIT forgot to account for automatically failing 0.4 students. 48% of BPS’s SWD automatically fail the MCAS. So, roughly 10% of all BPS students automatically receive a failing grade. At some schools the percentages are much higher, others lower. At all charter schools 0% of students receive a failing grade. Can someone please send this to Harvard and MIT and have them rethink their study. I have never seen the demographic info disaggregated so as to NOT include automatic warnings. Write your rep, and if you are a parent of a SWD demand answers. It’s a sham and a scam.

Colum Whyte
Concerned Citizen
BPS Teacher

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