The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 was the first statewide regulations concerning education requirements beyond history and physical education. The1993 reform act presented a seven-year framework to overhaul and change the states education system. The cornerstone of the reform act is a curriculum test that every student must pass in order to graduate. Since this test is widely considered to be a ‘high-stakes’ test, the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) test should not be a graduation requirement. (Fairtest.org Overview)

Massachusetts is not the only state to require a graduation test. While the 1993 reform act is in response to the lawsuit McDuffy v. Robertson (WGBH), it is also partly in response to the ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965), known now as the No Child Left Behind Act. Many states have taken the same high stakes testing approach to comply with the new regulations (Fairtest.org Dangerous). As of June 2000, nearly half of all the states required high school graduates to have passed some kind of assessment test (News Bureau).

Since the MCAS is a new requirement for graduation, many opponents point to a lack of preparation for the class of 2003. The MCAS test first arrived on the scene in 1998, long after the class of 2003 learned the fundamentals of reading and writing. A person may think this is not a big deal, that since fundamentals have not changed in the last five years, that the class of 2003 will be just as prepared as the class of 2006. This is not true in the case of fundamentals of taking the MCAS. Students that have gone through grade school with the requirement to pass MCAS for graduation are now being taught not fundamentals of reading and writing, but the fundamentals of what MCAS asks. “Teaching to the test” has also caused other courses of study to be deprived time in the classroom. If a subject is not tested by MCAS, there is less of a need to teach it. Art and music classes, long touted as highly beneficial to a child’s learning are getting less and less time (MTA, Wellstone).

The use of the MCAS to determine a students’ mastery of achievement fails to take some key issues into account. The biggest problem with using a high stakes test is that using a single test has never been proven to increase knowledge. While the passing numbers on the MCAS have gone up, neither the SAT’s or the ACT’s have shown a similar rate increase on their scores (Amrein Berliner). The Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE) holds the MCAS up as the way to comply with the 1993 Reform Act, but in reality, it is not a requirement of the act at all. What the Reform Act does is “calls for goals, standards, curriculum frameworks and assessments” and “for improved local assessment” (Fairtest.org Rethinking). Nowhere in the Reform Act does it require a statewide, high-stakes, graduation test.

Another key problem with the MCAS is how it is used with ILP (Individual Learning Plan) students and with the cost of education passed on to the local school system. Prior to the MCAS requirement, a student classified, as special needs would graduate if that student regularly attended school, worked hard and showed improvement. Now that MCAS is required for these students to graduate, some are finding themselves left behind. How does this cost a local school system money? A student that has an ILP, or is classified as special needs, is entitled to attend high school until the age of 22, four years longer then the average high school student. Local school systems have to fund the extra four years by as much as 75%. Even with all the time and money spent having these students in high school for 8 years rather then four, the student is not guaranteed a diploma(AP). A student with an ILP is entitled to some accommodations when taking the MCAS. The team that creates the students’ ILP is also responsible for requesting the accommodations a year in advance. Standard accommodations include extended time (not to exceed a class day), a small group setting and a change in test presentation. If a students’ ILP states that a student regularly takes classroom tests in Braille, the MCAS can be presented in the same manner. For some students’ with an ILP, more hurdles must be jumped. Students that require the test be read to them, or answers dictated, but apply for a non-standard accommodation. Something as simple as having a deaf student receive sign language interpretation for the Language and Literature portion of the MCAS is also considered a non-standard accommodation (DOE Disabilities)

Students with an LEP (Limited English Proficiency) plan suffer a worse fate with the MCAS. A student is coded as LEP when “a student whose first language is a language other than English who is unable to perform ordinary classroom work in English.” (DOE Limited 2). LEP coded students are required to take the MCAS, in English if they either a) are recommended for regular classroom learning the following school year, or b) have been enrolled in school in the United States for more then three years. The three-year enrollment is waived for MCAS tests administered to grade three students, but since passing the grade three MCAS does not affect a student being promoted, it is an unnecessary waiver. Over all this seems like a fair set of rules on the surface, but when compared to the requirements for the Spanish/English MCAS tests, the problems immediately become apparent. A student with a Spanish LEP plan is required to take a Spanish/English version of MCAS if they a) The student will continue to receive instruction in a Transitional Bilingual Education program or English as a Second Language support or b) can read and write at or near grade level in Spanish. No other non-English language is offered other then Spanish. (DOE Limited 3) . Of the 12000 students in the class of 2003 yet to pass, fifteen percent are students with limited English skills, but these students only comprise four percent of the class of 2003. (Kurtz)

The fact that a single test is ultimately determining if a student graduates high school flies in the face of reason. Robert Hauser of the National Academes of Science testified to a senate committee “No high-stakes educational decision about a test-taker should be made solely or automatically on the basis of a single test score”. He also testified that a students' entire academic portfolio should be looked at when determining if a student has mastered basic skills.

To top off all the problems with taking and using the tests, students must also worry about production and scoring. Harcourt Educational Measurement, the company contracted to produce and score the MCAS, was fined in California for 1.1 million dollars for administrative errors. The same company also had to pay rebates to the state of Vermont for errors in scoring the 1998 and 1999 Vermont state exams (Boser 1). In the spring 2002 MCAS test, a question on the history portion of the test actually had two correct answers. Since the scorers only recognized one as correct, a total of 883 students tests were scored incorrectly and ended up in a lower bracket. Six hundred sixty-six students that had been scored as ‘failing’ were re-scored as ‘passing’. This is not the first incident of question and answer problems. The previous years’ MCAS test had a geometry question thrown out for having two possible answers (Vaishnav). When it comes to state reporting of score improvement, even the state department of Education can not always get things right. The DOE used average scores to claim success of the test, but according to William Kendall, director of math in Braintree public schools, "It's not fuzzy math, it's phony math," that was used by the DOE to compare scores from one year to another (McElhenny).

No system to evaluate a students' knowledge is perfect. The years of passing grades and college admissions acceptance may be a thing of the past. Students' will now be asked to prove themselves one more time in the highest stake's test of their k-12 career. What does this ultimately teach students? That all it takes to fail in school is to fail one test.

Works Cited

Amrein, A.L. & Berliner, D.C. “High-stakes testing, uncertainty, and student learning” Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol 10 No 18. <http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n18>

Associated Press. “Special ed pupils struggle with test” The Cape Cod Times. 4 Nov 2002

Boser, Ulrich "States Face Limited Choices in Assessment Market" Education Week 19 8 Mar 2000: 1 22-23.

Fairtest.org. "Dangerous Legislation Signed Into Law" Fairtest.org. 21 Feb 2002 <http://www.fairtest.org/examarts/Winter%2001-02/dangerous%20leg.html>.

---"Overview of Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993" Fairtest.org. 20 Dec 1999 <http://www.fairtest.org/care/Overview_of_MA_Ed_Reform.html>.

---“Rethinking Assessment in Massachusetts: Alternatives to MCAS” Fairtest.org. June 1999 <http://www.fairtest.org/k12/rethinkingaseessment.html>.

Hauser, Robert M. Testimony. Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. 1999 April 1999

Kurtz, Michele. “Majority of MCAS failures from white students.” Boston Globe 11 Oct. 2002:B1

Massachusetts Department of Education. Requirements for Participation of Students with Limited English Proficiency in MCAS Spring 2002 Update. Malden: MA. DOE., 2002

Massachusetts Department of Education. Requirements for Participation of Students with Disabilites in MCAS Spring 2002 Update. Malden: MA DOE., 2002

Massachusetts Teachers Association. "ESEA and MCAS" MTA Today. June/July 2000. <http://www.massteacher.org/issues/esea/esea_2002-09-09.cfm>.

McElhenny, John. "Scoring Errors Cited in State MCAS Report" SouthCoastToday.com. 12 Jan 2001. <http://www.s-t.com/daily/01-01/01-12-01/a03sr018.htm>.

News Bureau. “High Stakes Testing and Its Effect on Education” Teachers College Columbia University. June 2000. <http://www.tc.columbia.edu/newsbureau/TCReports/highstakes.htm>.

Vaishnav,, Anand. "Teacher Finds MCAS Goof; 666 More Students Pass" The Boston Globe. 27 Sep 2002: B1

Wellstone, Paul. "High Stake's Tests Fail Our Children" USA Today. 13 Jan 2000. <http://wellstone.senate.gov/usatoday.htm>.

WGBH. "Education Reform" Eye on Education/Massachusetts Education Reform. 29 Aug 2002 <http://www.eyeoneducation.tv/reform/>.

By Rebecca Faulconer

Works Cited