Introduction to the Issues

Beginning in the Spring of 1998, the state of Massachusetts will begin field testing a new examination known as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). If everything proceeds according to plan, every student in the Boston Public School system will be required to pass this examination in order to receive a high school diploma.

Students taking the MCAS will receive a performance rating that corresponds to one of four performance levels. Students will be expected to score in one of the top two categories (Level III or Level IV) before they can receive their diploma.

At a meeting of the state Board of Education on 01/13/98, board chairman John R. Silber proposed changing the description of the Level II performance category from "basic" to "deficient" as a harbinger of the new and more demanding standards being set forth by the state.

At that same meeting, a coalition of professors from Boston College presented a letter to Dr. Silber that detailed many concerns they had with the new assessment system.

Official Documents

Letter submitted to the chairman of the Massachusetts State Board of Education.

• This letter briefly describes a number of concerns that the undersigned -- all currently affiliated with the Boston College School of Education -- have regarding the ongoing development and intended use of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).

Excerpt of the text of Acting Governor Paul Cellucci's State of the State Address given 01/15/98

• This excerpt outlines the part of the Acting Governor's speech that addressed standards and testing, with particular reference to the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.

Newspaper Articles

06/08/98; Boston Globe Online

By Deborah Meier and Alfie Kohn

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/159_lr/It_s_difficult_and_destructive.htm

• How do we define a well-educated person? What do we want our children to be doing in school on a given morning? These two questions are inextricably related, and the commonwealth of Massachusetts is providing its own answer to both of them, backed by the force of law, through the new MCAS examinations. Every parent and citizen in the state is being asked to accept not just the content of these tests but the view of education that underlies them and the practices that will follow from them.

06/05/98; Boston Globe Online

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff, 06/05/98

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/156_lr/Payzant_eyes_change_in__advanced_wo.htm

• Lost in the debate around Boston's neighborhood-based school assignment plan is a less sweeping but no less controversial proposal that could reduce the number of black students admitted to exam school prep classes. Specifically, Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant is considering applying the same formula for admission into the prep classes, called ''advanced work,'' that is now used for admission into the prestigious Boston Latin School. That formula withstood a major court challenge last week. Currently, about 50 percent of advanced work seats are reserved for blacks under a racial set-aside. The proposed new formula awards more seats based strictly on merit.

05/31/98; Boston Globe Online

By Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/151_lr/Learning_from_the_tests.htm

• Students have finished answering the questions on the new tests given to fourth-, eighth-, and 10-graders across Massachusetts this month for the first time and in so doing have also answered some of the questions about the tests. Yes, the tests were fair, with few exceptions. Yes, they were aligned pretty well with material in the state's new curriculum frameworks. Yes, students and teachers generally took them seriously. Absences and tardiness rates were low. No, the testing time was not reasonable.

05/28/98; The Standard Times

By Robin Estrin, Associated Press writer

http://www.s-t.com/daily/05-98/05-28-98/c02lo102.htm

• BOSTON -- The new school assessment tests are, with a few exceptions, finally completed -- 210,000 of them by every fourth-, eighth- and 10th-grader in the state. Now comes the next phase: grading. But the process is raising some questions, particularly on the so-called open-ended questions that could have several correct answers. "There's clearly going to be a lot of problems because people are just very, very anxious about it," said Judy Boroschek, director of curriculum and instruction in the Wellesley schools.

05/27/98; Boston Globe Online

By Jordana Hart, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/147_lr/Plan_earmarks__22_2m_to_help_failin.htm

• If state Senate leaders have their way, school districts struggling with high failure rates on the new state exams could tap into $22.2 million in state funds to finance programs for flunking students - from summer school and weekend classes to hiring outside specialists and bringing back retired teachers as tutors.

05/27/98; Boston Globe Online

By Eileen McNamara, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/147_lr/Overdue_homework.htm

• Flannery O'Connor is not a simple read even in a favored easy chair. Imagine encountering the Southern gothic storyteller for the first time as a 10th-grader, hours into the state's new standardized tests. There O'Connor was, in all her Southern extravagance, the beginning of her short story ''Good Country People'' reproduced to test the students' skill at predicting where the author will take her characters. It's hard to imagine what criteria graders will use to score responses to this question. Will students get more points the more unrelated their predictions are to Mrs. Hopewell? Will they be penalized if they jump to the wrong, if logical, conclusion that the story must have something to do with the character introduced in the initial paragraphs?

05/21/98; Boston Globe Online

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/141/Plan_to_toughen_school_promotion_po.htm

• A proposed promotion policy for Boston public school students would punish academically struggling students more than it would help them, 15 parents and community members told the School Committee at a public hearing last night. The policy, which includes mandatory summer school and promotions tied to citywide tests for some students, focuses strongly on ''student accountability but it is very light on adult accountability,'' said Robert Sperber, professor of education at Boston University. No one spoke in favor of the plan at the committee-sponsored hearing.

05/19/98; Boston Globe Online

By Globe Staff, 05/19/98

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/139_lr/Promotion_policy.htm

• Mandatory summer school beginning summer 1999 for students who have not met promotion requirements by the end of Grades 2, 3, 5, and 8. Fifth- and eighth-grade students who have already been held back once in elementary or middle school and do not meet promotion requirements to Grades 6 and 9 by the end of summer school must attend a special transition program to boost skills. Overage students can receive an alternative high school diploma. They will have to pass the MCAS but not other Boston School Department course or attendance requirements.

05/19/98; Boston Globe Online

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/139_lr/School_Committee_to_propose_tough_s.htm

• In one of the most ambitious efforts at reform in Boston public schools, the Boston School Committee will hold a public hearing tomorrow on a plan aimed at ending the widespread practice of promoting students who are not performing at grade level. The plan would call for strict new promotion requirements, as well as mandatory summer school for some students and other remedial programs.

05/14/98; Telegram.com

By Cynthia Koury; Telegram & Gazette Staff 

http://www.telegram.com/news/east/west.htm

• WESTBORO-- Students taking the new statewide comprehensive tests are finding the exams long and arduous, but they're taking them seriously, school officials said last night. Students in grades 4, 8 and 10 across the state began taking the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests last week. The exam covers three subjects this year: English language arts, math and science and technology. Westboro High School Principal Maureen H. Zolubos said some students found th directions were too vague and they weren't sure what they were supposed to answer.They have finished the language arts section and have started taking the math portion, according to Patricia C. Foley, director of curriculum. Foley said she has reviewed some of their answers, which she described as excellent. "Our students are alive and well," Foley told the School Committee last night. "It's a hard haul for the fourth grade for sure, but it's a hard haul for all of them."

05/14/98; Boston Globe Online

By Jordana Hart, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/134_lr/Teachers_seek_to_use_state_test_res.htm

• WATERTOWN - Education reform will suffer a serious blow if teachers are not able to use the results of the new MCAS exams to improve their classroom practices, teachers warned at a roundtable discussion about the tests yesterday. Ten teachers from across the state, who gathered to critique the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, said they were impressed overall with the content of the exams. But teachers at the meeting, organized by the Massachusetts Coalition for Higher Standards, said at Watertown High School that the state must provide teachers with detailed results of how their students did on the tests if teachers are to benefit. ''As a teacher, my concern is, what will I get from the test? If I just get scores, that doesn't give me real information to modify my teaching,'' said Sharon Rizzo, who teaches grades 4 and 5 at the Hosmer Elementary School in Watertown.

05/13/98; Boston Herald Online; Local News

By Darrell S. Pressley 

http://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/lonw/13lati1.htm

• The black and Hispanic student population at Boston Latin School has plunged since the city changed its admission policy as it fights a lawsuit brought against the system by a white student. The old policy, which called for a 35 percent ``set-aside'' for black and Hispanic students, was scrapped in 1996 after a judge ruled it was probably unconstitutional. The new policy awards half the openings at the school based solely on entrance exams and grades and the other half on a combination of academic merit and race. Every student admitted must score in the top half of all students applying. ``We warned them that even the 50-50 (policy) was not an equitable formula,'' said Leonard C. Alkins, president of Boston branch of the NAACP. The new policy has greatly changed the racial makeup of the school.

05/13/98; Gazette Net
By Mary Carey and The Associated Press

http://www.gazettenet.com/schools/0513_stories/TESTING.SCH.shtml

• Many students may need twice the time expected to complete the new statewide examinations, school officials locally and statewide say.The concern: the testing is eating into learning time. "It is definitely taking longer than (the test makers) had estimated it would take," said William Mahoney, principal of Hopkins Academy in Hadley. "They had said 45 minute-sessions for the tenth grade. But that's not even close" to what they need.

05/13/98; Boston Globe Online

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/133_lr/Tests_taking_much_longer.htm

• The new statewide MCAS exams, already under fire for cutting too much into classroom time, are taking up to twice as long to administer as the state had anticipated. State officials estimated that students would take about 45 minutes to complete each of about 14 exam sections, or a total of about 10 1/2 hours. Most schools are scheduling one or two sections a day. But in an informal survey of 22 schools yesterday, officials said some students find the untimed test so difficult and take it so seriously, they could need 18 to 20 hours to complete the whole thing. ''We're not talking five kids. We're talking one-third to 45 percent taking much more than the allotted time for the test,'' said Tom Imbriglio, chairman of Burlington High School pupil services. ''It's a drain on the kids and the entire system. That's not a complaint. It's just reality.'

05/10/98; The Boston Globe Online; Education

By Kate Zernike, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/130/Missing_the_point_of_tests.htm

• As last week's new statewide tests approached, the analysis got grimmer and grimmer. By the time 210,000 students poised their No. 2 pencils over the page, myriad critics had weighed in: Too much rote! Not enough excitement! More creativity! More time in class! More money! Missing amid the fury, of course, was the point that these goals are precisely what the testing is about: more creativity and class time, amid the biggest infusion of cash that Massachusetts schools have ever seen.

05/09/98; The Boston Globe Online

Associated Press

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/wirehtml/129_lr/Dose_of_anxiety_comes_with_tests.htm

• BOSTON (AP) - There's a new way to spell fear in Massachusetts public schools: MCAS. The much-anticipated Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests have finally hit the desks of fourth-, eighth- and 10th graders. And at least as measured by the media in recent weeks, the pulses of students, teachers and administrators alike are racing with anxiety. ``We're finding from students that the testing is hard, and the lower-level student is starting to get frustrated,'' said Louis Arienti, director of guidance at Brockton High School, speaking after the second of 15 days Brockton set aside for testing.

05/05/98; Boston Globe Online

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/125_lr/Student_sampler__State_test_is_no_p.htm

• MELROSE - After months of dire predictions about how poorly students would do on the dreaded MCAS state exams, several Melrose tenth-graders who took the first of 17 test sections yesterday said they were stunned by how easy it was. Many students acknowledged they had been anxious going into the test, given predictions of high failure rates and unpreparedness among Massachusetts students. Soaking up lunchtime sun in front of Melrose High School, several sophomores said they and their peers had been barraged with so many negative comments on their ability to perform well, they expected much worse. And some simply didn't try. ''I know a lot of people just filled in random answers,'' said Ryan Bremberg, 17, who did try to do well.

05/05/98; Boston Globe Online

By Cindy Rodriguez, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/125_lr/In_Roxbury__doubts_on_fairness.htm

• Though many who came to the forum wanted to hear more about these tests, many already suspected that they may further brand black and Latino children as inferior to white students. ''The tests will give students a score, but that's not what it'll mean to newspapers or to colleges or those who hire,'' said Judith Baker, an English teacher at Madison Park High School. ''It'll mean you're either literate or illiterate, competent or incompetent.''

04/10/98; The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/100_lr/A_smart_approach_to_the_tests.htm

• In their last meeting before statewide testing begins on May 4, members of the Massachusetts Board of Education took several steps that should help the state's massive public school reforms. With far more reason and less rancor than was evident in many recent meetings, the board voted unanimously yesterday to eliminate the fourth-grade tryout of the history and social science test because schools haven't had time to align their teaching with the required material. The board also agreed to administer the 10th-grade history and social science test only in schools where the curriculum fits.

04/10/98; The Boston Globe
By Jordana Hart, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/100_lr/Board_lightens_student_load_on_stat.htm

• Massachusetts fourth-graders will not have to take the statewide exam tryout questions in history and social science next month, and 10th-graders will be excused if they have not yet studied world civilization, the Board of Education ruled yesterday. Board members said they were concerned that fourth-graders were being made to sit for too many hours of testing this year, and that it was unfair to test 10th-graders on a subject they might not cover until 11th grade.

04/08/98;  Education Week on theWeb

http://www.edweek.org/ew/current/30mass.h17

• The clock is ticking loudly in Massachusetts, where educators are racing to prepare students for what they say are the most challenging tests public schools have ever administered in the state. The tests--the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or mcas--are a cornerstone of the state's multibillion-dollar education reform law. They will be given next month for the first time to 4th, 8th, and 10th graders, including special education, bilingual, vocational, and charter school students.

04/05/98; Boston Globe Online

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/095/Boning_up_for_the_tests.htm

• In states that have introduced rigorous statewide testing to help improve the public schools, a successful start usually depends not only on aggressive outreach by state and local education officials but on active support from the private sector. With less than a month to go before fourth-, eighth-, and 10th-graders across Massachusetts sit down for the initial battery of tests, questions from students and parents indicate that a burst of last-minute information is needed. The state Department of Education has attempted to describe its program to the public in several ways, though its printed materials and on-site visits have been more valuable than its hokey13-minute video, which begins with a succession of people expressing fears in staged settings. School districts have been turning up the volume of material distributed to homes and classrooms, though some of the preparatory documents put out by the state were late in arriving.
  

04/05/98; Boston Globe Online; Page K09

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/095/Brochure_issued_on_new_tests.htm

• The Massachusetts Department of Education has published a brochure to tell students, teachers, and parents more about the new Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests to be given in May. The tests on English, math, and science and technology, will be given to all students in grades 4, 8, and 10 each spring. In 1999, history and social science will be added to the tests, and in 2000 world languages will be added to the test for tenth-graders.

03/25/98; CNC SPECIAL REPORT

http://www.townonline.com/specials/failinggrade/

• Starting this year, 200,000 4th, 8th and 10th graders across the state will begin taking tests that are supposed to rate how well years of education reform have been working in Massachusetts. But a Community Newspaper Co. investigation finds that the company managing the test, Advanced Systems, has had a troubled track record, giving rise to questions about how well things will go here.

03/10/98; The Boston Globe; Page A10

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/069/Enough_time_for_testing.htm

• Just last Aug. 15, a memo to superintendents said the tests would take about eight 45-minute class periods for 10th-graders and less for the lower grades. Peter Finn, head of the state Association of School Superintendents, also cites concerns about the ability to hold young students' attention for that long. And the testing may simply take too much time away from teaching and learning. But there are good reasons for the extensive testing. One is that the four tests - English, history, mathematics, and science - must each be broad enough to cover an adequate amount of the material in the state's new curriculum frameworks to be fair. They must also be able to withstand anticipated legal challenges, a fact stressed by Bill Guenther of Mass Insight, a private group that is rallying support for education reform.

2/12/98; Brookline Tab

http://www.townonline.com/brookline/speak/opinion/letters/019787_2_labeling_021298_559738e7f0.html

• The purpose of this letter is to request that the state Board of Education reverse its January decision to designate the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System category below proficient as "deficient." We do not quarrel with the category of "failing." We believe that a major goal of all school systems should be to promote high academic achievement for all students and that we should be held accountable for motivating all youngsters to climb the ladder of academic success. However, we believe that replacing the designation of "basic" with "deficient" is inaccurate, educationally unsound and potentially detrimental to student achievement.

02/04/98; The Boston Globe; Metro/Region
By Jordana Hart, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/035/Advocates_warn_students_may_fare_po.htm

• Advocates for standardized exams that Massachusetts students will take for the first time this May warned yesterday that the test results will likely be dismal. They urged lawmakers to prepare for pressure from parents to lower the bar when scores come out next fall.

02/03/98; The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/wirehtml/034_lr/Lawmakers_told_to_brace_for_reactio.htm

• Kathleen Holmes Reynolds, assistant superintendent of Salem Public Schools, said she's worried the test will be unfair to districts with large numbers of immigrants who might struggle with English and other subjects. She said about a third of Salem's pupils are Hispanic, with many from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Reynolds said a separate standard or test for those students could prevent those districts from being labeled as ``underperforming'' - something that can scare away both teachers and parents.

01/26/98; The Boston Globe
By Alan Stoskopf Brookline

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/026/What_impact_will_new_statewide_test.htm

• Before we embrace the test (Massachusetts Competency Assessment System test), as you ask educators to do, we need to ask ourselves some fundamental questions. How are these tests designed, what do we hope to measure, and what impact will they have on teacher instruction and student learning? I am afraid there has not been enough open critical examination by the Board of Education with the general public on these questions. Without it, your call for a ''moral crusade'' could be more like a lemming march to the sea.

01/26/98; The Boston Globe
By Tom Hooper English Teacher Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/026/The_state_s_education_reforms_are_m.htm

• Under state law, students must be in the classroom 990 hours a year. This 990 rule is extremely destructive. No one, certainly not an adolescent, learns best by sitting in a classroom hour after hour all day. The test requirements do away with all we have been striving for. Who believes that tests of short-term memory have anything to do with education? These reforms leave out everything that is important: the individual growth of individual minds, the acknowledgment of the feminine as well as the masculine, the enlargement of cultural thought to include everyone, not just the history of Greece and England.

01/16/98; The Boston Globe

http://boston.com/globe/latest/daily/15/state_of_state.htm

• Acting Gov. Paul Cellucci said last night in his State of the State address that he suspects that new tests that in three years will be used to pass students or block them from graduating will come under attack. ''I suspect, when test results are in this year, the picture will be troubling. Many students will fail. A lot of schools will be embarrassed and some legislators and parents will come to us complaining that the tests are too difficult,'' Cellucci said. ''But I will stand firm, I will not lower the standards,'' Cellucci said. ''I will not let mediocrity be the standard for our schools. I will not let failure be a passing grade for our students.''

Web sites covering the MCAS

Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education

http://www.tiac.net/users/kba/CARE.MCASconcerns.html

• Outlines this groups concerns about the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.

Massachusetts State Department of Education

www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/

• This portion of the site provides sample items for the MCAS, compares the MCAS to the MEAP, and outlines the implementation schedule for the examination.

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