MCAS in the news (4/1 - 4/6)

E-difficulties keep the list short this week. There's new news about MA students' performance on
TIMSS, the international math and science tests. Other articles point to DOE's dropping of science tryout items, professional advice on reducing MCAS anxiety, MCAS tension in Cape Cod schools, and what educators are doing to prepare third graders for new reading tests.


Metrowest Daily News, 4/6: Another round of testing begins
http://www.townonline.com/08196348.htm

Yesterday marked the first official day for the 2001 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System exams, the fourth year the state has given the tests.
From now until Memorial Day, classrooms will fall quiet as students takes tests in math, English,
science and history and social science.....
.... " I think districts recognize what needs to be done and are making great strides not in teaching to the test, but in what needs to be done to help students, " said Joanne Grenier, director of instructional services for Marlborough public schools.
This year’s tests, however, have meant more preparation time for more teachers and students in
elementary and junior high schools. In addition to the fourth, eighth and 10th grades, three more
grades are taking the test....
.... Third-graders at Framingham’s Brophy Elementary School took reading tests yesterday. All of
Brophy’s classroom doors had signs warning " MCAS Testing, Do not disturb. " 
In Paula Del Prete’s third-grade class students spent at least an hour a week practicing for the test.
Students answered questions from old tests, and twice a week read passages and answered
multiple-choice questions.....
.... To prepare students for the test, Hopkinton teachers have focused on writing skills and the types of questions students will face on the tests, particularly short-answer and open-ended questions.
" The kids know how to write better, and they know how to make an argument, " Starr said....
.... The biggest test worries may be harbored by the state’s 10th-graders. They will have have five
chances, starting this spring, to pass the test to graduate. They must take tests in four subjects, but only the English and the math are graduation requirements.
"I think (MCAS) is becoming more routine, but there’s tremendous anxiety among our
10th-graders, " Grenier said. " This is going to count for them. " 


AP report: Springfield Union News, 4/5: MA pupils score well on global test
http://www.masslive.com/newsindex/springfield/index.ssf?/news/pstories/ae45timm.html

.... Education officials lauded the results on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMMS, but warned against using them to make any predictions about improvements on this year's state assessment exam. 
Jonathan E. Palumbo, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said the state will
continue to focus on its customized exams. 
"We recognize we're above national and international averages, our students are performing well, 
but we're still focusing on our state standards," Palumbo said. "The bottom line is, our students are  doing well, but we think they can do better." 
Timothy T. Collins, on leave as a math teacher to serve as president of the Springfield school
district's teachers union, said the results paint a more positive picture about student ability than the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exams. 
"I think people need to take a second look at MCAS," he said. "When you're (seeing) 45
percent of kids in the state aren't passing MCAS, and our students are performing better than the
average of all the students in the nation, that says something about the MCAS test." ....
.... Monty Neill, head of the Cambridge-based FairTest, said, "I think what this shows is that the 
MCAS is an absurdly difficult test designed to flunk kids." ....
.... The tests were given voluntarily in 1999 in 38 countries, 13 states and 14 school districts or
groups. The eighth-graders who took the test were selected randomly....


Springfield Union-News, 4/5: State takes a pass on MCAS [science] test
http://www.masslive.com/newsindex/springfield/index.ssf?/news/pstories/ae45mcau.html

Citing an overwhelming workload and last-minute changes that would hassle high schools,
Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll has decided to postpone the MCAS science question
tryouts originally slated next month for freshmen and sophomores. 
Question tryouts are given to help testmakers develop future exams and do not count for students.
For this reason, administrators said the change has little bearing on them — except to ease the burden of the testing period....
.... In a memo sent this week to Board of Education members explaining the decision he made over the weekend, Driscoll said staff have been working long hours to finalize the tests. 
"There have been a number of challenges, and Harcourt ultimately sent a team of people to
Massachusetts to work through these matters," he said, referring to the testing company, San
Antonio-based Harcourt Educational Measurement. 
The science questions require at least one week of intensive editing to finalize, which would
require a later, separate shipment of test materials that would complicate matters for high schools, he said. 
Driscoll said that if tryouts remained, "key members of our staff will not be able to focus on other
aspects of this spring's testing program that are crucial in this first year of high-stakes testing." 


Metrowest Daily News, 4/3: Health Matters: MCAS anxiety; Experts offer students advice to take
the edge off the test 
http://www.townonline.com/tol/news/education/08037213.htm 

If there’s one tip Jennifer Johnston would give to students taking the MCAS exams this month,
it’s this one.
Breathe. It seems like such a basic thing. But Johnston, director of curriculum and administration for the Education Initiative of the Mind/Body Medical Institute of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center said students who start to panic while taking such a life-changing exam may hold their breath or hyperventilate....
.... Breathing lessons are among the exercises the Mind/Body Medical Institute is offering to teachers through a workshop this month. " Making the Most of the MCAS: Reducing Stress for Academic Success " will be held in Boston on the afternoons of April 9 and 24.....
.... " The teachers are stressed — the work they’re supposed to be doing to help the students prepare for MCAS, never mind the curriculum; not to mention that everyone is stressed in schools these days, " Johnston said.....
.... " Testing can be stressful for many people, but that additional stress of having it be a graduation requirement only adds to the anxiety, " Johnston said.
In addition to the relaxation exercises in the course, the Education Initiative also has the following tips for students facing MCAS:
-- Be sure to go to bed early to get a good night’s sleep before the test.
-- Allow plenty of time to get ready in the morning to avoid the stress of rushing.
-- Listen to classical or other soothing music while dressing.
-- Eat breakfast, even if there are " butterflies " in the stomach. Fruit and protein provide energy and
promote more alertness than a meal heavy in carbohydrates.
-- Drink a tall glass of water and take extra to drink in the classroom to combat dehydration, which
can affect performance.
-- Be mindful of enjoyable elements of nature on the trip to school.
-- Take a few deep breaths anytime nervousness strikes. Try breathing in and counting from 1 up to 4, then breathing out, counting down from 4 to 1.
-- Before the test starts, don’t panic — focus on the positive. Thoughts such as " I can do this " or " I bet I’ll know a lot of this material " can reduce anxiety.
-- In between tests, take a moment to stand, stretch and yawn. Massage the area around the eyes and neck. These actions release physical tension that can build up from sitting for an extended period....


Cape Cod Times, 4/1: Crunch time: As test time draws near, teachers try to balance their daily curriculum with
MCAS review 
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/crunchtime1.htm

..... [Provincetown High teacher Lee] Ciliberto carefully plans out each of her five classes. Over her 28-year career, the outlines have been a way to keep herself and each class on track. 
Now every daily outline has an explanation of how the lesson relates to the MCAS test. 
For instance, the Jan 30 plan covered solving equations and inequalities including those that involve the absolute value of linear expressions and apply to the solution of problems....
.... Each outline also includes an MCAS review. That's when Ciliberto steps out of the daily
curriculum to go over questions that appeared on last year's MCAS test. 
The questions don't match the topic she's teaching at the moment. But Ciliberto tries to relate each review to a general math principle. 
Ciliberto said these reviews usually don't take too much time away from her lesson. She said it
helps the students' confidence in preparing for the exam, which begins this month with an essay writing portion. 
But then, when sophomore Josh DeMello asks a question, she spends 10 minutes explaining. 
Though Ciliberto would never ignore a student's question, after class she laments that the question left
her no time to finish her regular lesson that day. 
Like many teachers, Ciliberto is under the gun to teach a certain amount of new material, while
keeping enough old material in students' heads so that they can pass the Massachusetts
Comprehensive Assessment System exam.....
.... One piece of the MCAS requires math teachers to take a competency exam if their students'
scores fail to improve. 
Ciliberto, while not opposed to the tests themselves, thinks the competency test is unfair. 
Math is cumulative, and why should she be blamed if she inherits students who never mastered
basic skills they should have learned in earlier grades? 
But MCAS aside, Ciliberto feels overwhelmed by the other pressures of teaching.....
.... The MCAS certainly does nothing to lighten her load. 
In fact, Ciliberto is now dealing with the state's latest demand. 
She must write and execute individual remedial plans for four of her 68 students. The remedial
plans are for those who failed earlier MCAS tests.....
.... [T]he way she figures it, each plan will take countless hours and it could call for students to stay
back a year. 
She will need to look at each student's answers to the 40 questions on the MCAS math test. Next,
she must look for patterns.....
.... Once she knows those answers, she must prescribe a plan to help the child improve. And by law
this plan must be executed during a school day, and in the regular classroom. 
She has no idea how, or when, she'll do this. 
What if the student needs basic work with fractions? Fractions were supposed to be taught in
elementary school. They are not part of the statewide ninth-grade curriculum. 
"So I cannot take the time in class to work on fractions," she said. 
There's also another problem. 
What if the student is not willing to do extra work? 
Ciliberto's question goes to the heart of why many teachers think the MCAS exams are not fair
to students, to teachers or to schools.....
..... The University of Massachusetts' Donahue Institute concluded in a 2000 study that despite eight
years of Massachusetts education reform, 83 percent of the predictors of test success continue to be
the amount of education of the parents, family income and a student's proficiency in the English
language. 
"MCAS makes schools and teachers the scapegoats for everything," said Margaret Phillips, a
Provincetown High School English teacher for 31 years. 
Politicians won't yell at children or parents for the students' diminished academic skills because the
parents are the voters, Phillips said. 
"So they blame the teachers and the schools," she said.....
..... Provincetown High School social studies teacher Brian Robinson leads an after-school MCAS
prep course two days a week at the high school. He's paid to do it. He's a new teacher, and could
certainly use the extra income.
Each week, he blows about $30 buying the students cookies, soda and candy for the 45-minute
after-school sessions....
.... "I want to acknowledge the effort they are making by staying after school," he said. 
After the candy is consumed, the students begin the MCAS preparation. This consists of trying to
answer the MCAS questions from last year's test as a group. 
Robinson knows it's useless to teach the content of the test. There's too much of it, and it's too
esoteric. 
"I was a history major and I still think a lot of those questions are obscure," he said. 
Recently, his middle-school students were stumped by this question at the during the prep session:

"Late Paleolithic hunters adapted to the spread of glaciers in northern latitudes by: 
a) herding animals into rock shelters. 
b) creating large, organized communities. 
c) planting crops for food. 
d) using animal hides and fur for clothing." 
The correct answer, D, makes sense once you know it. But, as Robinson pointed out, it's difficult
to guess from reading the question what exactly the questioner wants to know. Is it climate changes,
social advances, or agricultural adaptations? The question appeared on the eighth-grade social studies
exam in 2000. 
Robinson uses his after-school course as an opportunity to teach children how to take a test. They
learn to look for key words. He instructs them to read the question two or three times, and makes
sure they understand. 
The questions are tricky. Some of the multiple-choice questions ask for the best answer, not
necessarily the right one. "So the kids might just pick the first one that fits, not the best one," he said. 
"It's kind of sick," he said. "Any kid with language-based problems, (the test) really gets them."....
.... Nauset Regional school system could be the first to find out if this capitalist model in education
works. The district, which stretches from Wellfleet to Brewster, is one of two systems in the state to
offer salary incentives to teachers if their students' MCAS scores rise. 
Nauset Supt. Mike Gradone promised to give his teachers a 1 percent salary increase if the
MCAS scores went up 4 points in two years. Amazingly, scores rose in every school in the Nauset
district, which includes five elementaries, one middle and one high school. Since 1998, Nauset scores
have increased an average of 5 points per test, Gradone said....
.... Nauset teachers welcomed a new curriculum, she said. They don't bad-mouth the MCAS tests to
the students. But they are not blind cheerleaders either. 
Metters is the first to admit that the test harms lower-performing students....
.... The problem with education has less to do with accountability, [teachers] say. Teachers don't need
to be tested. They need help. They are already being asked to do too much. 
[Margaret] Phillips, the Provincetown High School English teacher, said if she spends just five
minutes a week correcting one composition by each of her 70 students, that would take 350 minutes
or six hours a week. Of course, there's a lot more homework than that each week. 
"I'm fast and I'm good, but don't you think the state and parents would want me to spend more
than five minutes with each student's work?" she said....
.... "It seems the farther you get from the classroom, the more you know about education, and I
resent, as a teacher, that I'm being micro-managed by bureaucrats," said James Bougas, a social
studies teacher at Harwich Middle School.....


New Bedford Standard-Times, 4/1: Expanded MCAS testing begins this week
http://www.s-t.com/daily/04-01/04-04-01/a01lo002.htm