Hundreds Protest High-Stakes MCAS Exam at
Boston City Council Hearing:
Seek Delay in Graduation Requirement
By Jackie King
Calling upon elected officials to stand up
for Boston students about to be denied a diploma this June, more than 200 city
residents packed into a hearing at Dudley Library in Roxbury Tuesday night to
demand a delay or an end to the MCAS graduation requirement.
“You’re pushing out the very students that
education reform was supposed to support,” said Samantha Wright, senior at
Dorchester High. “You are telling me that because I failed this one test, I
can’t fulfill my dreams...”
Madison Park High School teacher Judith
Baker charged, “We rode the desegregation bus and then a hijacker got on the bus
and is driving it in the opposite direction… Everything that has stood for
reform and improvement in our schools has been subjugated to a single test…At my
school, there are no high-level courses anymore. MCAS remedial classes have
taken over.”
The hearing was called by City Councilor
Chuck Turner, chair of the Education Committee, to seek testimony on a
resolution calling for a postponement of the MCAS graduation requirement until
“there is no significant disparity between the outcomes of students in
Massachusetts’ poorer and wealthier communities and no significant disparity in
the outcomes of students of color and white students on the MCAS test.” Several
Boston groups including Boston CARE, Mass. Advocacy Center, Boston Parents
Organizing Network, Black Ministerial Alliance, Project HIP HOP, and others
helped the the offices of Councilors Turner, Arroyo, and Yancey organize the
event.
The meeting drew a wide array of students,
parents, teachers, ministers, youth organizers, social workers, elected
officials, and other concerned citizens from Boston’s schools and neighborhoods.
Speaker after speaker rose to denounce the harmful effects of the high-stakes
MCAS exam on their children and on the public schools.
As the evening wore on, the testimony
became more heated and more directly addressed to Boston Superintendent Thomas
Payzant, who was sitting in the front row. In a repeated chant, Boston Latin
teacher Steve Fernandez asked the community, “Whose schools are these?” and they
responded “Our schools!!” He blasted Payzant and other school officials for
having lower expectations for Black and Hispanic students than they do for white
students. He asked why Payzant had abandoned his position, written in 1996,
which said that multiple measures of assessment were the legitimate way to
determine student progress, not a single paper-and-pencil test. At that point,
the superintendent left the room.
Richard Stutman, who is running for the
presidency of the Boston Teachers Union, charged that the MCAS has narrowed the
curriculum and pushed teachers and parents aside from meaningful involvement in
the teaching of students. He noted the unfairness of the graduation requirement:
“These students have attended classes, played by our rules, passed our courses,
and now because they have not passed this test, they may not graduate…In this
testing system, the high stakes are one way – students suffer the high-stakes
consequences, while adults avoid the high-stakes responsibilities.”
Payzant had begun the hearing by touting
the fact that Boston had reduced the number of students failing MCAS to 767
students, or 22% of the class of 2003. Questioning by Councilor Turner revealed
that this figure was calculated by leaving out all the students in the class of
2003 who started ninth grade but have dropped out or been left behind along the
way.
Rep Liz Malia said, “While young people
are being condemned to a future without employment possibilities, I can’t accept
the limitations and strictures of the MCAS. These students are being asked to
face a life of no hope. They are being asked to walk out into the world without
credentials and without hope.
The hearing adjourned after three hours of
testimony, with virtually every speaker calling for a delay or end to the
graduation requirement. The City Council will vote on the resolution on March 26th,
and then take the matter to the School Committee.
The proposed City Council resolution is
below.
City of Boston
In City Council
January 28, 2003
Resolution of Councilors
Chuck Turner, Felix D. Arroyo, Charles
Yancey, Stephen Murphy, Michael Ross, Michael F. Flaherty, Maureen Feeney, Jerry
McDermott, and Rob Consalvo
WHEREAS: The Education Reform Act
of 1993 was a response to the Massachusetts Superior Court decision that found
inequities in the funding of public schools that deprived students in
Massachusetts’ poorer communities, many of which had high percentages of
students of color, of the opportunity to receive an adequate education and the
State had a responsibility to provide equal educational opportunity to all
students; and
WHEREAS: The Education Reform Act
of 1993 does not require that students pass a standardized test in order to
graduate from high school and the Education Reform Act of 1993 specifically
called for multiple methods of assessing student proficiency; and
WHEREAS: The State Board of
Education is requiring that seniors in 2003 pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive
Assessment System (MCAS) test in order to graduate; and
WHEREAS: To date 44% (16740
students) of Boston’s seniors are ineligible for diplomas based on the MCAS
test; and
WHEREAS: Superintendent Payzant
acknowledges that 10% - 15% of the teachers in the system are not certified and
that 50% of the teachers of math in high schools have math as a secondary
certification; and
WHEREAS: Superintendent Payzant
admits that it has taken a number of years to bring Boston curriculum into
alignment with state standards; and
WHEREAS: Superintendent Payzant has
not only acknowledged that there is a racial achievement gap but also that
closing the racial achievement gap is a top priority of his administration; and
WHEREAS: Given the State’s
financial crisis, it is likely that the funds for MCAS support will be cut;
THEREFORE BE IT
RESOLVED: That the Boston City
Council requests that the Boston School Committee join with the Council in
asking the State Board of Education to postpone the use of the MCAS test as a
criterion for graduation until there is no significant disparity between the
outcomes of students in Massachusetts’ poorer and wealthier communities and no
significant disparity in the outcome of students of color and white students on
the MCAS test.
