Marilyn J. Segal, Alliance for High Standards NOT High Stakes, 617-227-3000
Jackie King, CARE, 617-864-4810

Education experts to call for "fair and comprehensive assessments"

A knowledgeable and concerned group of activists and advocates for children will testify before the legislature's Joint Committee on Education, Arts and Humanities, Tuesday at the first public hearing in two years to consider more than forty bills filed to change the use of MCAS. Most will be calling for the state's student assessment system to be both fair and comprehensive.

"The current use of MCAS is inherently unfair because it applies a single high stakes test to everybody" says Carol Le Prevost, President of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. "Furthermore, MCAS is inconsistent with the federal No Child Left Behind mandate which is creating a bureaucratic regulatory nightmare for every public school system.

Retired Judge and former state Representative Sumner Kaplan will remind committee members that the regulation allowing for MCAS "ignores the mandate of the Education Reform act requiring multiple assessments of at least six subjects. The law was carefully crafted to comply with the McDuffy decision by the Supreme Judicial Court which mandates an adequate education for every child in the Commonwealth."

Among the high profile witnesses that will testify are Anne Wass, Vice President, Massachusetts Teachers Association; Carol LePrevost, President, Massachusetts Association of School Committees; Wayne Masse, parent who filed initiative petition to end graduation requirement; Jean McGuire, Executive Director, METCO; Dr. Walt Haney, professor, Lynch School of Education, Boston College and Senior Research Associate in BC’s Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Educational Policy; Dr. Monty Neill, Executive Director, FairTest Retired Judge Sumner Kaplan, Alliance for High Standards NOT High Stakes John Bookston, Brookline High School mathematics teacher; Joshua Kaufman, Brookline High School student; Dr. Brad MacGowan, President-Elect, New England Association for College Admissions Counseling; Kathleen Rhoades, PhD. Candidate, Lynch School of Education, Boston College; ..many concerned parents are also scheduled to testify.

Anne Wass of the MTA, a teacher asserts that "no single test is ever good enough, accurate enough or comprehensive enough to give a true measure of what a student knows and is able to do. That is why no single test should ever be used to determine whether a child graduates from high school thereby unfairly limiting a student’s life opportunities. This happened to several thousand Massachusetts students this spring."Now that we have six years of experience with MCAS, it is time for this legislature to make an honest evaluation of the testing program."

Parents, educators, advocates for children will be at the hearing tomorrow to urge the legislature to do just that!