Once again our children - in grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 -
are about to be abused by having to take the high stakes MCAS tests.
Over the past four years parents, teachers and professional educators
have documented the damage to students, teachers, and curriculum that
follows from the imposition of this one-size fits-all test. MassCARE
and others have documented the negative effects of this test on
students and their schools. We have rallied, petitioned, lobbied the
legislature, boycotted, and initiated court proceedings.
However, through all this the 9 member State Board of
Education, originally appointed by Governors Weld and John Silber,
continue to undermine public education, unperturbed, by the thousands
of high school seniors who have been denied diplomas and have been
forced to put their lives on hold, attend classes on MCAS prep or
simply move on in life without a high school diploma. This board has
ignored the thousands of parents who petitioned in opposition to the
test, refused to listen to the testimony of teachers and educators
who oppose the test and have dismissed the resolutions of the Mass
Association of School Committees who have condemned the test.
With the unfortunate passage of the No Child Left Behind Act,
the additional muscle of the US Dept. of Ed. now backs up the
testing requirement. Resisting this continued attack on our public
schools will require new strategies. We will be developing these in
the next six months, and will report them at
www.caremass.org,
through ParentsCare newsletter and our e-newsletter. The summary of
the recently held Brookline NCLB forum which can be seen on this
website makes clear how damaging the NCLB will be, and how it rests
on high stakes testing.
In earlier years boycotts of the tests were an important tactic
for gaining public attention. With the high stakes aspect now firmly
in place for 10th graders, MassCARE efforts last Spring turned to
trying to get as many high school seniors their diplomas as possible
- through pressure for a special ed exemption, and through our
school committee diploma-granting (see other articles on this site).
A number of students and families will once again be
boycotting the elementary school tests in the next few weeks, which
do not bear on high school graduation at all. Boycotting the MCAS
test does however impact on your schools overall scores as a
boycotting student will receive a score of 0 by the Department of
Education and oddly enough will be included in the school test
statistics. The Department of Education refuses to simply include
the number of kids who actually take the test in their statistics,
and leave out boycotters and absent students.
We are currently unable to advise boycotting families and
students about their legal rights and all the ramifications of
refusing to take the test, but for families that feel comfortable
having their kids boycott, it is clearly one of the options for the
tests over the next 2 weeks. The exposure for elementary students is
obviously much less than for high school students.
For more information contact Tim Plenk
tplenk@igc.org
Jonathan King
Tim Plenk
MassCare;
MassParents: www.massparents.org
