Lowell Sun
March 12, 2003

School committees should override MCAS requirement

While unelected bureaucrats congratulate themselves over an MCAS-based
graduation requirement that is leaving 6,058 Massachusetts students behind,
local school committees can still take action to help deserving students
achieve their educational and career goals. Citizens and taxpayers in
Greater Lowell communities must take a stand against the Massachusetts Board
of Education's position on the MCAS test as a requirement for a high school
diploma.

Please call or write your local school committee members and ask them to
pass resolutions to grant diplomas to students who meet the locally
established criteria for graduation regardless of their scores on the MCAS
test. Seven school committees have already taken this courageous and
responsible step, and dozens more are considering it. The Massachusetts
Association of School Committees voted 97-27 at its meeting in October to
reaffirm the right of school boards to grant diplomas based on sound local
educational criteria and not on the results of a single exam.

If even one deserving student who meets all of his or her high school's
requirements for a diploma is denied a diploma, it is a gross injustice.

I trust our democratically elected school committee members to set
appropriate standards and to hire competent administrators, teachers and
support staff to educate our children.

School systems in our state have functioned very well for decades with local
control. I have no confidence in a top-down, centralized system that uses an
unproven test, designed and graded by a profit-making Texas company that has
made significant errors in other states, to tell local communities what they
should and should not be doing for their young people.

Granting diplomas to deserving students will send a strong message to
students that their education is valuable. These resolutions will also send
a strong message to unelected, state-level autocrats that local communities
are very capable of setting and maintaining high standards without their
outside intervention.

BRAD MacGOWAN

Chelmsford