State House Forum asks
 'Can We Afford MCAS in 2003?'

 By Lisa Guisbond, MassCARE/FairTest

More than 120 people packed Gardner Auditorium at the State House yesterday and listened as speaker after speaker built a devastating case against the MCAS graduation requirement, particularly during a fiscal crisis that is forcing school districts to cut essential educational services and staff. Among the crowd were 80 legislators and aides, some of whom heard directly from their constituents before and after the forum, entitled "Can We Afford MCAS in 2003?"

The forum was sponsored by The Alliance for High Standards, NOT High Stakes and CARE, as well as the Mass. Assoc. of School Committees, Mass. Teachers Association and several other organizations. It was moderated by Reps. Ruth Balser and Frank Smizik and introduced by Sen. Cynthia Creem and Rep. Alice Wolf.

Rep. Smizik set the theme of the forum, noting that the true cost of MCAS to local districts is incalculable and goes way beyong the direct cost of $18 million this year for test administration and $50 million in remediation funds.

Brookline High School Student Josh Kaufman, 16, spoke of his plight as a top student whose future may be derailed by the graduation requirement and his difficulty passing the math MCAS due to a learning disability. Because of his accomplishments in and out of school and high scores on other measures, he gets daily solicitations from colleges like Brown University, yet he can't shake the nagging fear that the MCAS could be his downfall. "I have spoken to many other students who have failed MCAS and each of them has a compelling story. The stigma of having failed silences them. ..On good days I wonder what is wrong with the system, but most of the time I wonder
what is wrong with me."

Businessman and former Board of Education member Frank Haydu reminded us that Ed Reform was a response to the McDuffy lawsuit charging the state with violating the constitution because of vast funding inequities in public schools. He asserted that the board never intended competency to be determined by a single test and that the legislation was written to reflect the fact that students learn in different ways that therefore we must use multiple forms of assessment. He noted the tragic persistence of these inequities, contrasting urban schools that lock students out and sent them home if they come to school late, with suburban schools where such policies are unheard of. Unfortunately, he said, little has changed except to institute this system that punishes those with the least resources.

Mission Hill School Principal Deborah Meier backed Haydu's support for multiple forms of assessment by relating her experiences with students at New York's Central Park East Secondary School. By offering these students a curriculum with high standards and assessing them in a range of ways, she was able to have an enormous impact on the course of their lives. This was confirmed by information gleaned from following graduates of her school for 8 years and seeing that they did better than expected by every indicator that really matters: going on to and finishing college, finding employment, staying off drugs, etc. Since test scores reliably indicate socioeconomic status rather than qualities that students really need to be successful--qualities like initiative, responsibility, respectfulness and critical thinking--her students test scores did NOT go up substantially, but their lives did change. Meier concluded by expressing disbelief that policies like MCAS and the federal No Child Left Behind act are intended to close the gap between rich and poor, black and white, when it is so obvious that policymakers ignore all the other economic or social gaps that riddle our society.

Psychologist and learning disability expert Ross Greene said that hearing first from Josh Kaufman, an individual student, was a fitting antidote to policymakers' tendency to be group oriented. He said MCAS forces us to focus on the group, which means the kids he works with, who need individualized approaches to their education, are increasingly left out. He quoted teachers saying they wished they could take the time to focus on learning how his kids learn, but they have been "legislated out of individualizing" and can't take the time away from preparing the group for the MCAS. When schools respond to individual students' needs, the community is enhanced. But when disabled students are included and the bar is the same for everyone, we have to boot those students who don't fit, and they end up costing millions of dollars that they wouldn't cost if we really focused on individualizing education. "Show me a school that has the same bar for everybody and I'll show you a school that is working for nobody," he concluded.

Boston City Councilor and Education Committee Chair Chuck Turner said that since it's clear high-stakes testing is not beneficial, he is forced to conclude that policymakers at the Pioneer Institute and the Board of Education are intentionally moving us toward an entrenched two-tier society. That is why the Boston City Council is expected to pass a resolution saying the MCAS should not be used as a graduation requirement until outcome disparities are eliminated between poorer and wealthier communities and between students of color and white students. The resolution, which will be presented at a hearing on Tuesday, March 18 at 6 p.m. at the Dudley Branch Library, calls on the Boston School Committee to join with the City council in requesting that the Board of Ed to postpone the graduation requirement.

Boston City Councilor Felix Arroyo said millions have been wasted on this test to tell us that poorer students have worse outcomes than richer ones and it's time to stop. "If we really believe all children can learn, let's make sure they do and provide the resources they need to do so." Arroyo listed the staggering MCAS failure rates in Boston's poorest communities: Roxbury Crossing, 52%; Roxbury proper, 53.9%; Mattapan, 50%. Did we really need four years of tests to find this out?

BC Education Professor Walt Haney said keeping a college professor to five minutes was cruel and unusual punishment, but proceeded to summarize his important findings about increasing student dropouts, attrition and the technical flaws in the MCAS. He revealed that MCAS questions are thrown out if 80% or more students get the correct answer, thereby guaranteeing that a certain percentage of students will always fail. He said that by underestimating MCAS failure rates by ignoring student attrition, the DOE is concealing the harm its policy is inflicting on public school students. He added that the use of MCAS for high stakes violates the standards of the measurement profession.

FairTest Executive Director Monty Neill provided a vision of a better way by detailing authentic accountability plan developed by CARE and the MTA, the heart of which is an emphasis on local assessments to determine how children are learning and thereby improve instruction. Unlike high stakes testing, Neill said, quality local assessments by well-trained teachers actually contribute to closing the infamous achievement gap. He pointed to the legislation filed by Sen. Creem and Rep. Wolf, and others that would do just that (S257). He also pointed out that the new federal education law requires an increase in testing and "high stakes on steroids" for schools, which will lead to forced takeovers of most urban schools and districts, educational chaos, and reducing even more education to teaching to the test.

Finally, Jean McGuire gave a personal example of authentic assessment, recalling how her mother would get down on hands and knees to inspect her eight children's housecleaning efforts and refuse to let them out to play until it was done right. Inauthentic, high-stakes assessment like the MCAS, on the other hand, makes her afraid because it smacks of "final solutions." She said the MCAS is the modern equivalent of the yellow star, the new segregation, and it fits into other patterns that afflict the poor and minorities, like lack of affordable housing and health care.