Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester, who moved here from Ohio to take over the state’s top education job, chairs the governing board that developed the PARCC exams being considered by the state board of education as a replacement for our existing MCAS student achievement tests. He is also charged with recommending which of the two tests Massachusetts should use in the future. Even the partisan Pioneer Institute, which normally puts positions of the Republican administration ahead of reason, says he should recuse himself from the process. As Dave McGeney of the Peabody School Committee separately observed to WBUR:
“You cannot be the person whose job it is to determine in all honesty and objectivity whether or not the PARCC test is going to be a better test than the MCAS test and be the person who is the chairman of the board of governors of that entity,” McGeney said in a recent interview. “It defies logic. It flies in the face of reason.…”
Now, in an open letter to the Governor published in the WaPo, Massachusetts education expert Rebecca Steinitz (parent, writer, editor and literacy consultant in Massachusetts urban high schools, previously an English professor and director of the freshman writing program at Ohio Wesleyan University, and director of the high school teacher education program at Lesley University’s School of Education, and a friend of mine) alleges “shenanigans” in the ongoing evaluation process. In a piece headlined “Massachusetts officials are ‘recklessly pushing’ the state into the PARCC test” (and “Something Is Rotten In The State Of Massachusetts” when the same piece appeared on WBUR) she wrote “Even as the DESE drags its heels on releasing actual data, it appears to have become a propaganda arm for PARCC.” Steinitz cited slanted presentations, delays in releasing information, and opaque management. She concluded:
In fact, the Commonwealth is not united behind the PARCC tests. While 54 percent of Massachusetts districts chose to adopt PARCC this year, their choice seems as likely to have been dictated by anxiety about the future and by the promise of “no risk” as by enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Teachers Association opposes PARCC, and State Rep. Marjorie Decker and 53 co-sponsors have filed a bill that would place a three-year moratorium on adopting the PARCC test.
So, Gov. Baker, is this really the moment to hand over our children’s futures to the PARCC Consortium, which has already proven itself to be less than transparent and accountable to the people of Massachusetts? It’s also worth noting that membership in the consortium has fallen from 24 states and the District of Columbia to 11 states and the District, of which as few as six may actually administer the PARCC next year. Is this really the engine we want driving our education system?
Chester is trying to walk with his shoelaces tied together by refusing to recuse himself from what is obviously a conflict of interest. That’s not allowed in school. A time out, like that suggested by Decker and her colleagues, is a sensible response from the grown-ups.
That is what an opposition party looks like! Opposition here is entirely reasonable from a policy and transparency angle alike. The creeping privatization of our schools via charters and turning them into testing centers that primarily benefit the test makers has gone on long enough, and as flawed as MCAS is, it’s definitely better than PARCC.
BESE Commissioner Mitchell Chester, and PARCC Board Chair, went so far as threaten that a low participation rate on the statewide assessments can adversely affect a school’s performance rating in the state and federal accountability system! This is a death knell for many underperforming and turnaround schools. What’s Commissioner Mitchell Chester’s answer, “Use this as a “teachable moment” to inform the school community about why we use assessments and what is lost when students do not participate.”
“What is lost?” Selling standardized testing and curriculum products to Massachusetts schools? A future sales job for Mitchell Chester’s at Pearson? If Mitchell Chester wants to be a salesman for Pearson, he should resign his job as Massachusetts Commissioner of Education!
The Boston Public high school I teach in tested for 25 days last year, that number doesn’t include the weeks and months spent on test preparation classes and benchmark practice exams. There was the 1st “Predictive” in ELA, Math, Science, PSAT/NMsQT (Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test), “Paced Interims” in ELA, Math, History, MCAS ELA, ELA Composition, ELA Reading Comprehension, Math and Science, MEPA and the end of the year assessments.
Students are justifiably angry. Many are threatening not to come to school, not to take the tests, and I’ve seen many SPED/SWD and ELL students just “connect the dot” so they can get on with their day.
PARCC is about moving school funds to private companies. With only 6 states agreeing to administer the PARCC this year, why is Massachusetts even entertaining it? The Massachusetts legislature would be wise to adopt the Decker Moratorium on High Stakes Testing Bill H.340. The state should use that time to rethink our policies that are turning too many of our schools into test-prep factories. That’s not what we want for education in Massachusetts!