Parents Protest, Students Boycott as MCAS Rolls On

MCAS is everywhere.

The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is a battery of exams in language arts, social studies, math and science administered to fourth, eighth and tenth graders. Students are scored in each area as being advanced, proficient, needing improvement or failing.

Over the next two weeks, fourth graders will take seven separate exams and eighth and tenth graders will take 12 exams, each about an hour long.

Opponents of the test will rally Monday at the State House to present legislators with an anti-MCAS petition and protest the length and format of the exam, which they say narrows curriculum and turns schooling into an massive MCAS test-prep exercise.

Even Kaplan, the company that offers books and courses in preparing for standardized tests like the SAT, is getting in on the act; their Parent's Guide to the MCAS 4th Grade Tests sells for $5.95.

Words from both sides suggest two areas of underlying agreement among the discord: achievement tests are worthwhile, but MCAS is an imperfect instrument.

A Test Which Tries Too Hard?

"I'm not against standardized testing," says Larry W. Ward.

Ward, a parent of three students in the Cambridge public schools, is like many parents who oppose MCAS. His objections to MCAS, he says, are specifically about this exam--not the idea of having state-wide tests.

Starting next year, passing the tenth grade MCAS will be a state requirement to receive a high school diploma. That means current ninth graders will have to pass the test next spring or retake it their junior and senior years until they pass.

Ward says schools, students and the test itself are not ready for this "high stakes" exam.

"[MCAS] is still in phases of development, and they still plan on using it as a measure of graduation," he says of the state Board of Education.

Like many others, Ward says making MCAS a graduation requirement punishes students for failures of the Commonwealth's education system.

"Whenever you talk about reform, change, accountability or standards, you typically start off at the top," he says. "You don't start with the kids."

Hannah N. Jukovsky, a sophomore at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School who boycotted the April sitting of the exam, agrees the exam's efforts at ensuring accountability are misguided.

She says the test tries to do too much and has contradictory goals: to ensure minimal competency in academic subjects and raise standards at the same time.

MCAS is a "tool of education reform rather than a measure of the success of education reform," she says. "It's as if they're trying to make the test do the work."

An Academic Yardstick

Supporters of the exam also see the test doing some of the work of education reform, but to them this is a merit, not a defect. They hope MCAS will spur changes in curriculum.

MCAS is designed to test students' knowledge of the subject matter in the state's "curriculum frameworks," a set of documents laying out broad areas which students should be familiar with by each grade level.

According to the fourth grade math frameworks, for instance, students should "demonstrate an understanding of the basic concepts of fractions, mixed numbers and decimals," and "apply fractions and decimals to problem situations."

The eighth grade history frameworks include a section titled "society, diversity, commonality and the individual," which says students are expected to "learn of the complex interplay that has existed from the beginning of our country between American ideals and American practice in the pursuit of realizing the goals of the Declaration of Independence for all people."

MCAS opponents say the test asks questions over too broad a range of subjects. The social studies exam especially receives heavy criticism.

Students are "being asked to cover a vast amount of material," says Jackie Dee King, a parent whose two children boycotted the written test last month.

But supporters of the exam say a standardized test covering state-wide frameworks will force districts to rethink languishing curriculum.

"The reason the MCAS came [about] is because school districts weren't performing," says school committee member Alfred B. Fantini.

Supporters like Fantini say the test is flawed and should not be the sole determiner of high school graduation. But they say the test was established to address the very issue that opponents say MCAS exacerbates: inequity.

"The whole test was established because there are gaps in achievement," says school committee member Joseph G. Grassi. Cambridge is "a primary example of why the state developed MCAS."

And while some opponents say the test is biased, supporters maintain that it provides a balanced yardstick to measure performance.

The exam is "fair to minorities, because now you have to teach everybody," says Emma Stickgold, a CRLS senior and a member of the student school committee.

Let the Test Rest

MCAS opponents also object to the test's format, saying it affects the school calendar and curriculum.

"Final exams in college don't take two weeks. SATs don't take that long. People who are applying to medical school go for one day," says Josiane Hudicourd-Barnes, a former bilingual teacher in Cambridge. "This test interrupts kids' lives for two weeks."

Hudicourd-Barnes says the test has already affected course offerings, meaning broad courses are offered in ninth and tenth grade to prepare students for the variety of material on the MCAS.

For example, she says, many ninth graders who used to take a course in biology and a United States or European history class now take a science survey and a course in world history.

In addition to covering too much material, King says the MCAS takes too long in general.

"It pushes aside a lot of culmination activities," she says.

At the Graham and Parks school, which her two children attend, students end the year by creating a portfolio--a "rigorous and quite prolonged" process that culminates, she says, with teachers asking students questions about their work in an elementary school version of a dissertation defense.

"It's not a fluffy, let-them-off-easy assessment," she says.

Parents like King are not the only ones who favor so-called alternative assessments to the MCAS--which is one of the chief areas of common ground between the test's supporters and detractors.

Superintendent of Schools Bobbie J. D'Alessandro, who favors the MCAS but oversees a district where about 40 percent of high school students will fail the test, says she is lobbying Commissioner of Education David P. Driscoll to allow districts to consider portfolios and other standardized tests.

One reason schools officials want the state to allow other forms of assessment is because Cambridge students do better on other exams.

Last year, for instance, third graders across the city took the Iowa test, a nationally-recognized reading exam. On that test, 58 percent of students were classified as proficient or advanced readers. But just 17 percent of fourth graders last year scored proficient or above on the MCAS language arts exam.

Bringing it to the Streets

Cambridge is more tolerant of MCAS protests than nearly any other local community--the school committee even voted in December not to punish boycotters.

On April 12, more than 100 students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS) boycotted the written composition test, a part of the MCAS that was given last month.

Students held a teach-in to talk about their opposition to the test and held a rally in front of City Hall. Students and their parents chanted "be a hero, take a zero" as motorists honked to show support for the boycott.

The boycotters' grades were not affected and they came back to school the next day without penalty, in accord with the December school committee decision.

But in Arlington, 25 students received three-day suspensions for not taking the composition exam, and in Brookline, students who boycotted the test had a zero factored into their grade.

Though Cambridge has one of the state's most lenient policies on MCAS boycotts, some parents were upset when Superintendent of Schools Bobbie J. D'Alessandro sent a controversial letter to parents saying boycotts could "potentially disrupt the school environment" and "could ultimately have serious repercussions for your child's future education."

At a school committee meeting last month, several parents decried efforts by district administrators to discourage boycotts as "intimidation."

School committee members also objected that D'Alessandro's letter said she wanted "to clarify the Cambridge Public Schools' position on [MCAS]" but never mentioned the policy of no reprisals.

Committee member Nancy Walser, who was not a member of the school committee in December, says she supports the no reprisal policy and felt D'Alessandro's letter "did neglect to say what the school committee voted."

Several weeks later, D'Alessandro said she thought her statement needed to be "clarified" and sent out a second letter.

The MCAS Crucible

School committee members reflect the attitudes of parents like Ward and King: a mix of philosophical support for the idea of testing and frustration with the implementation of the exam.

"I don't oppose testing," says committee member E. Denise Simmons. "I oppose, 'Your life begins or ends on this test.'"

Though MCAS is a state initiative, the exam has put pressure on local schools officials, who will likely face a dilemma in 2003, when for the first time graduation will be based on passing the MCAS.

"The state does need a way to take a quick temperature of how the schools are doing," Walser says.

But, she says, "I think we should put the burden on the state to come up with a test that people can buy into more."

D'Alessandro says the district has a "clear mandate" to administer the test and MCAS results help schools officials to identify areas of need in the district and allow teachers to identify subjects where students need more help.

"It's a wonderful way to get information for school planning and individual students," she says.

According to D'Alessandro, students boycotting the test will hurt the district's standing, because the state does not distinguish between students who take the test and fail it and those who receive failing marks because they boycotted the test.

"When Cambridge gets its scores, we'll be way down there," she says.