Legislature’s Joint Committee on
Education, Arts, and Humanities
Public Hearing on MCAS Bills on
September 9, 2003
Quotations and Testimony from Parents,
Teachers, Students, Administrators, Researchers, Testing Experts, and Elected
Officials
Compiled by MassCARE, the Massachusetts
Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education and the Alliance for High Standards,
NOT High Stakes
“That even one child, much less thousands,
fails to get an essential high school diploma even though he/she did everything
else right in high school, is doing irreparable harm. One test – given no matter
how many times – should not overrule 13 years of schooling and the judgment of
all those who know him or her best…But the harm, in fact, is equally falling on
all the kids who pass. It’s hardly a surprise that relentlessly giving the same
test over and over – and relentlessly organizing schooling around testing –
should produce a lift in scores. But it does not indicate whether we have more
well-educated graduates.”
Deborah Meier
Headmaster, Mission Hill School,
Boston Boston
“With the advent of the MCAS exam as a
condition of high school graduation, Massachusetts has clearly turned back the
clock on special education. This standardized paper-and-pencil test tends to
emphasize a student’s limitations rather than building on his or her
abilities…MCAS has failed abysmally to address the circumstances of students
with disabilities. This test is destroying the aspirations of some of the
Commonwealth’s hardest working students. Why are we placing insurmountable
obstacles in the paths of our most vulnerable public school students? ‘One size
does not fit all,’ and standardization is the antithesis of special education.
If MCAS remains the barrier it has become for these children, then 25 years of
progress will be reversed, and a high school diploma will become the ‘impossible
dream.’”
Ruth Kaplan
Member, Brookline School Committee
Co-Chair, Alliance for High Standards
NOT High Stakes
phone: 617-566-4173, email:
kaplanruth@aol.com
Brookline
“MCAS ‘pass’ rates do not take into
account all the 7th and 8th and 9th and 10th
graders who give up – who are disproportionately poor, of color, whose first
language is not English. These children learn that they are failures at their
first MCAS results and have that bitter knowledge hammered home with each
additional round of testing. These are capable, smart, engaging children held to
one measure of success, one class-biased strata of achievement – no matter what
rich skills and interests and prior knowledge they bring to their own learning.
Why should they persevere? Who cares if they drop out? They are among the
thousands and thousands of the new “disappeared” – the state’s most vulnerable
children, the ones education reform was touted to support.”
Meg Robbins, teacher
Co-Chair Hampshire County CARE
Northampton, Mass.
phone: 413-657-3506, email:
megrobbins@comcast.net
Northampton
“The state must replace its unfair,
one-size-fits-all test with an alternative assessment system such as the one
proposed by the Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education and the
Massachusetts Teachers Association, and introduced by Sen. Creem. Such a system
would include assessments that support teaching and learning, and would use
multiple forms of evidence for making decisions about student and school
progress.”
Monty Neill
Executive Director of the National
Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest) phone: 617-864-4810, email:
monty@fairtest.org
Cambridge
“The Governor, the Board of Education and
you in the Legislature, continue to
hold children of the Commonwealth to the highest graduation standards in the
nation. This is unconscionable when you are retreating from providing the
resources necessary for local districts to create the circumstances that are
needed so that all children have a chance to meet that standard.”
Timothy T. Collins
President of the Springfield Education
Association
phone: 413-782-8300, email:
sea@javanet.com
Springfield
“We need high-stakes resources and
a commitment to sustain those resources and to bring about the kind of changes
necessary so that all children can learn… What is in place to make sure that
students will be able to pass this test next year and in the years to come? We
are seeing budget cuts, increasing class sizes, huge cutbacks in funding for
MCAS tutorials, elimination of libraries and other resources. How can you hold
students accountable to a test in that environment? How can you hold them
accountable for subject matter they have not even been taught?”
Jean McGuire
Executive Director of METCO
Chair of MassCARE (Mass. Coalition
for Authentic Reform in Education)
phone: 617427-1545, email:
jmcguire@metcoinc.org
Boston
“My son has multiple learning disabilities
and attends Landmark School. He struggles mightily, especially with math. I am
not sure he will ever be able to do the math portion of MCAS. Yet he is a very
gifted artist. I am concerned that one test will deny him the opportunity to
receive a diploma and thus continue to art school to pursue his gift. If he was
a privately paid student he could receive the Landmark diploma which is accepted
by all universities and colleges. Landmark is currently fighting the DOE on
their ruling that publicly funded students cannot receive the Landmark diploma
if they do not pass MCAS, even though they have met Landmark’s well-established
academic standards. Why are we punishing children for the minds they are born
with instead of encouraging and supporting their gifts and strengths?”
Sarah L. Patton
Mother of special education student in
Winchester
email:
salrick@comcast.net
Winchester
“As an educator for over thirty years, I
oppose the MCAS as a … requirement for graduation because it is bad educational
practice…We need to engage our young people in a holistic learning process that
enables them to contribute their gifts in manifold ways to enhance the quality
of life of the broader community and meet the challenges of the 21st
century…tests such as the MCAS undermine quality education based upon active
processes of critical and creative inquiry and replace them with shallow
exercises in rote memorization of disconnected bits of information…Secondly, I
oppose the MCAS because it is unjust. It punishes students for the failure of
schools, further exacerbates and legitimizes a society of winners and losers,
and consigns the majority of urban students to the scrap heap of society. The
MCAS has become a very effective sorting device to validate systemic processes
of social and economic inequality.”
Mary Jo Hetzel, Ph.D.
Faculty Member, Springfield College,
School of Human Services, Boston Campus
phone: 617-983-2741, email:
Mary_Jo_Hetzel@spfldcol.edu
Boston
“On Sept. 3rd, the Department
of Education announced the “extremely impressive” results of the 10th
grade MCAS tests this spring. These results: only 25% of students in the class
of 2003 (17,400 students) failed the test; only 48% of Blacks failed the tests
(1,700 students); and only 56% of Latinos failed the tests (2,900 students). We
now learn that the figures for Blacks and Latinos are greatly understated…If
these results are “extremely impressive” it is difficult to imagine what figures
would be less than impressive. While the Dept of Education is clear on what
constitutes student failure, it seems somewhat less clear on what would
constitute failure of the MCAS program, or of the DOE.”
Thomas R. Crowder, Newton
Public school parent and grandparent
Email:
thomasrcrowder@yahoo.com
Newton
“The regulation (MCAS graduation
requirement) is invalid for several reasons. It does not comport with the clear
intent of the statute which was enacted a few days after and in consequence of
the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in the McDuffy case which constitutionally
mandated an adequate education for every child in the Commonwealth. The Board’s
regulation completely ignores this mandate and ignores the carefully crafted
conforming legislative mandate requiring multiple assessments of at least six
subjects. The Board’s action amounts to defiance of you, the Legislature, by
substituting, as unelected officials, its own views and ideas of what’s best for
our children. This is democracy at its worst, and if you allow it to continue,
you abandon your functions and duties as legislators… We elected you, not an
appointed board, to represent us and we urge you to do so.”
Sumner Z. Kaplan
Former State Representative and retired
Trial Court Judge
phone: 617-566-1381, email:
SZK@aol.com
Boston
"As an advocate I hear countless stories
from parents on how schools refuse to provide special education services, refuse
to evaluate kids for special ed services, fail to implement IEPs and refuse to
provide access to the general curriculum. One school gave an 8-year-old boy
dot-to-dots instead of age appropriate math because it was easier for the staff.
The Department of Education does not hold schools accountable for failing to
provide needed services and a decent education for kids in special ed, yet
they're quick to deny diplomas when our kids fail the MCAS. Why is DOE punishing
our kids for the schools’ refusal to obey state and federal law?"
Cathy Taylor
Advocate, Cape Organization for Rights
of the Disabled (CORD)
Parent of a 15-year-old son in special
education
email:
ctaylor@cape.com
Cape Cod
“The fact that state officials expressed
happiness that “only” one quarter of the 10th graders now fail MCAS
on the first try reveals a major flaw in their thinking: the premise that a
single, one-size-fits-all test can discriminate passing from failing students
would never be accepted in other walks of life. Would you go to a physician who
offers only one test to determine your health? Would you accept a plumber with
only one tool in his or her tool chest? Then why accept a single outcome test to
determine whether a student can graduate from high school?”
David E. Krebs, DPT, PhD
Professor and Director, MGH Biomotion
Laboratory
MGH Institute of Health Professions,
Charlestown Navy Yard
phone: 617-726-8016, email:
krebs@helix.mgh.harvard.edu
Charlestown
“Today, I will focus on one negative
effect of the MCAS – how the MCAS limits many students’ access to higher
education, keeps students from rewarding and higher-paying careers, and
adversely affects the supply of skilled labor necessary for our economy… With
the MCAS requirement in place, a significant number of Massachusetts high school
seniors every year will not receive diplomas, even though they have great
passion and potential for success in important vocational areas… (Many students
who did not pass MCAS may attend community colleges with financial aid from the
state, but must take MCAS remediation courses and not career-related courses.) …
They struggled in some courses and on the MCAS, but stayed in school because
they had their eyes on a goal. We are now reducing their education to only the
areas in which they struggled, while taking away the areas that gave them
motivation and goals.”
Bradford R. MacGowan, Ed.D
College and career counselor at Newton
North High School
President-Elect of the New England
Association for College Admission Counseling
phone: 978-256-2653, email:
bmacgowan@comcast.net
Newton / Chelmsford
“In my role as a professor of education, I
have the opportunity to work with teachers K-8 every day I go to work. Without
question, the overemphasis on standardized testing, and the MCAS in particular,
has warped the curriculum in directions that can actually reduce effective
teaching. When teachers see this sort of thing happen, they feel demoralized and
disempowered… While there is much in education reform to be proud of, such as
the development of curriculum frameworks and the creation of more opportunities
for community involvement in the schools, the downside has been the misuse of
standard test scores, the manipulation of results, pass score manipulation by
politicians, and over-reliance on one instrument (the MCAS) over more authentic
and personalized evaluations and assessments that ought to be at the core of
academic decision-making.”
Charles W. Hetzel, Ph.D.
Professor of Education
Fitchburg, Massachusetts
email:
charliehetzel@aol.com
Fitchburg
For more information, contact:
Jackie Dee King, MassCARE,
617-864-4810,
jackie@fairtest.org
Marilyn Segal, Citizens for Public
Schools, 617-227-3000,
marilyn@citizensforpublicschools.org
