Call to Demonstrate at the Graham and Parks School Against the state Department of Education
on Sept 19, 2002

Hello Friends,

In an outrageous turn of events, the state Department of Education has chosen to come to the Graham and Parks School tomorrow, as the site of their propaganda extravaganza/ press conference to release the spring 2002 MCAS scores, broken down by district and by school. (They released the overall statewide scores a couple of weeks ago.)

The MCAS has resulted in a situation where 38% of our senior class may not graduate in June; the curriculum is being narrowed; dropout and retention rates are increasing; and all of these factors are falling most heavily on low-income, minority, special education, vocational, and bilingual students.

Please join us in a peaceful demonstration  Tomorrow, Thursday Sept 19, 2002 On the sidewalk in front of the Graham and Parks School 15 Upton Street, (runs between Magazine and Pleasant Streets in Cambridgeport)

From 10:00  to 10:30 am (when press will be arriving to cover 10:30 press conference) 

We will  have “Education not MCAS” and other signs there for people to carry, if you want, and many anti-MCAS buttons.  Please pass the word on to other people!!

Several of us Graham and Parks parents are very upset about this blatant use of our school and our students to promote the DOE’s political agenda. Some of us believe that the DOE could be deliberately choosing Cambridge for this event as a slap in the face of the School Committee for their vote last spring re granting diplomas regardless of MCAS, and a slap in the face of parents and teachers in Cambridge who have worked long and hard to oppose this test. 

Apparently the math scores at G&P went up. Of course we are proud of our students and our school for the work they do. But a rise in test scores from a small sample population over one year is not statistically significant, as Anne Wheelock’s research has so carefully described. And increases in MCAS scores, and decreases in failure rates, do not mean real improvements in teaching and learning.

MassParents/Cambridge CARE : Graham and Parks Committee