Amanda Formica

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Joint Education Committee:

As you may know, being a teenager can be substantially tough. You have to deal with peer pressure, parents, teachers, yourself, and figuring out where you do and don’t fit in. Another stressful thing, which friends and I have actually put in its own category, is the MCAS test. I feel that one standardized test should not be given the power to weigh the academic knowledge of every child in a whole state, and decide whether or not each of those children may be allowed to graduate high school. If a student was actually to fail the 10^th grade MCAS tests, they will be kept from getting their diploma, and consequently not be able to have the choice of different types of higher learning that they may have so desired. He or she may be exceedingly bright, but just have a hard time doing well on tests. This exact predicament could be prevented.

A student like that would most likely have been kept back, just to adequately prepare them for MCAS. After all, every score counts, and you don’t want parents taking their children out of the public school system because of a few unruly students who lowered the town average. Teachers have to actually change around their curriculum plan just to make sure we learn all of the information that will supposedly be on the MCAS in future years. Taking the exam fills nearly two weeks of our regularly scheduled classes. I know this makes at least me, anxious that something could go wrong and it seems so hard not to worry before I take the test. Imagine the amount of work that could’ve been completed in those two weeks. Is that really necessary?

Another reason we, as kids, are supposed to take this standardized test, it is said, is to measure how well our teachers are doing, individually and as a whole. I must say that I have never met a teacher who doesn’t know, like, or care, about what they’re doing. If they didn’t qualify, I should think they wouldn’t be where they are as teachers. Unfortunately, a few of these dedicated people are choosing to leave the occupation they love most because of their opposition to MCAS. For some, it’s too stressful, aggravating, and tedious to even compete with all together, so they go. What does anyone gain from this?

Though I wish I were allowed to write so much more, I have been limited to this summary, of some of the reasons why I am opposed to the use of a single test such as MCAS to measure if any boy or girl is, "good enough" to survive in life (which is basically, what it’s doing). Though you have and will listen to many voices against the MCAS today, mine is one more voice that would like to be heard. 

Thank You.

Amanda Formica
Grade 7
Ottoson Middle School