Cambridge parents pledge to end MCAS

By Andreae Downs, Globe Correspondent, 10/31/99

CAMBRIDGE - It may not be the shot heard round the world, but parents here are hoping their forum earlier this month will inspire parents around the state to an MCAS revolt.

"Just in the last few weeks, I've been getting calls from parents in other areas wanting to organize," said Karen Hartke of FairTest, one of the forum's organizers. "Parents want good education for their children and want something better than a one-shot test deciding the fate of all students."

The Oct. 21 forum, which drew about 90 people, was sponsored by Cambridge Parents Against the MCAS and the Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education.

The organizers' main objection to the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System seemed to be its use as the sole instrument to determine whether a child can graduate from high school. They said children who don't test well have become discouraged about school and learning, and others may drop out because of the test.

"My fear is that we are writing off a whole segment of the student population with this test," said Susan McCray, a Cambridge junior high humanities teacher.

Parents left the meeting with plans to form parent, boycott the spring test, start a petition, and lobby legislators on the test's weaknesses.

In other communities, parent conversations around the MCAS have started, but have not yet reached this level of protest.

Allston-Brighton parents, for instance, have a "high level of anxiety" around the test, but have just begun to talk about it, according to Kay Matthew, director of School Linked Services for the neighborhood's Healthy Boston coalition.

"There is questioning and discussion," Matthew said. "We have talked about teaching to the test and how it's not about learning because the kids aren't learning to apply knowledge. And I've had lots of calls from parents wanting to find tutors so their kids can pass the MCAS."

Other concerns raised in Boston include the effect the test has on disabled students and on schools without the needed resources to bring students up to standard.

"Teachers just don't have the supports," Matthew said, "and kids are being blamed for not passing when they have never had the resources."

In Somerville, Melrose, Newton, and Watertown, as in Boston, individual parents have encouraged their children to boycott the test or have taken them out of the public schools. Private schools are not required to administer the MCAS.

In Brookline, where students score well on the test, members of the School Committee have chosen to focus on minimizing the impact of the MCAS on their schools. According to School Committee member Terry Kwan, any focus on the test statewide most likely will only increase its cost at the expense of other programs, including remediation.

"The School Committee told the administration not to change anything as a result of MCAS or the [state curriculum] frameworks unless, in their professional opinion, it would be better if they did," she said.

Kwan said the system was looking to formalize its current graduation requirements in anticipation of the state mandating a passing MCAS grade for graduation in 2003.

"So if we don't agree with the state's one-test do-or-die, we have an alternative," she said. "We can show them that we have higher standards than the MCAS."

At the Cambridge meeting, participants clearly felt their schools were not as buffered as Brookline's.

Vito Perrone, director of teaching and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, listed flaws he sees in the test, including that it is "eminently coachable," is "faulty on many levels," and is "not credible."

"These are tedious tests, which do more to discourage than encourage the kind of schools we want," he said. "To have a score on a single test determine the future of kids is indefensible educationally or morally."

The Department of Education recently released its own report showing MCAS scores correspond with students' scores on other tests.

This report "addresses the extent to which the MCAS tests are valid and reliable, two components that are essential to the integrity of any test, and particularly of the MCAS, due to the eventual high-stakes uses of its results," commissioner David Driscoll said in a press release. "The MCAS exam meets the high standards that anyone would set."

Students, teachers, and parents at the forum expressed distress at how much classroom time is taken by preparation for and administration of the test.

"Our history teacher stopped world history to review US history so we would be briefed for the test," said Amanda Goldberg, a junior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin who boycotted the test last spring. "It took 20 hours of
class time" to take the test.

Cambridge teacher McCray agreed.

"If you drill the kids on ancient history through the 20th century, they won't remember a thing," she said. "Kids really learn when they are immersed in in-depth study."

Dan French, former administrator in the state Department of Education and now director of the Center for Collaborative Education in Boston, mentioned the political history of the test, the curriculum frameworks, and the state Department of Education itself.

"The MCAS goes against the grain of education reform," he said, referring to the state Education Reform Act of 1993. "It will result in increasing the achievement gap between low-income and affluent students, between white
and black and Hispanic students."

Cambridge parent Tim Wise agreed.

"Parents' standards for the Board of Education are different, and higher," he said. "We want the `comprehensive assessment system' promised by education reform. Instead, we've got a ridiculously long standardized test."

To reach Cambridge Parents Against MCAS, call 441-0863, or reach FairTest at 864-4810.

This story ran on page 01 of the Boston Globe's City Weekly on 10/31/99. 

Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.