Hundreds of students boycott MCAS test 

Sanctions are issued in scattered protests

By Doreen Iudica Vigue, Globe Staff and Tara Yaekel Globe
Correspondent, 4/13/2000 

Hundreds of students across the state boycotted the MCAS exam
yesterday, some by walking out of school, others by writing essays
on why they dislike the high-stakes test, and others by taking their
protests to city hall.

While there had been mounting dissension over the Massachusetts
Comprehensive Assessment System test administered in grades
4, 8, and 10, yesterday's protests were easily the most dramatic
and best organized - and students faced the harshest punishments
to date.

In Arlington, 25 students were suspended Tuesday for three days
for refusing to take the exam. In Brookline, about 20 students who
staged a walkout at the high school will have zeros averaged into
their grades for English and math courses. While Cambridge
students will not face sanctions, 110 students from grades 4, 8,
and 10 citywide marched to City Hall to deliver anti-MCAS essays
they wrote and publicly air their objections.

For their part, students said the punishments would not deter them
from continuing their protest and encouraging their friends to join
them because, they insisted, the test - which will become a
requirement for graduation in 2003 - is bad for education.

''This was a conscionable act by students who do not support the
test or its implications,'' said Will Greene, a spokesman for the
Student Coalition for Alternatives to the MCAS, or SCAM, a
statewide student group based at Monument Mountain Regional
High School in Great Barrington. About 45 students there
boycotted the test and wrote essays critiquing it that they will
present to their School Committee tonight.

''One standardized test cannot assess many of the important
aspects of school. I think it's wrong,'' said Greene, 15, a
sophomore.

State education officials said students who do not take the test
could undermine efforts to evaluate public schools and plan further
reforms to the school system. The sanctions for boycotting
students, they said, are appropriate.

''I disagree with the position they are taking,'' said James A.
Peyser, state Board of Education chairman. ''If they don't take the
test, it makes it harder for us to continue the improvement process.
Part of civil disobedience is accepting some of the penalties and
costs that go along with it. It's an empty gesture if there is no
penalty.''

Commissioner David P. Driscoll issued a statement saying that the
test went smoothly and called the boycotts ''minor.''

''The people of Massachusetts should be very proud of the great
majority of administrators, teachers, and students who took the test
seriously today and they should be commended,'' the statement
said.

Bill Guenther, president of Mass Insight Education, a pro-MCAS
business group, said dissenters risk robbing themselves of
knowing whether they are ready for college or the work world.

''These are skills that matter for college and jobs, and it seems
really self-defeating for kids to avoid an exercise that is, in fact,
going to help them,'' Guenther said.

About 220,000 students across the state took the
English/Language Arts long composition portion of the exam
yesterday in grades 4, 8, and 10. On May 15, students in grades
4-8 and Grade 10 will take a multiple-choice version of the test on
various subjects.

Greene said he and other SCAM members decided not to walk out
or be disruptive in their civil disobedience, preferring to write about
their issues with the exam and draw attention to its flaws rather
than to themselves.

''We have a lot to accomplish if we want the state to reverse their
decision on MCAS. We had to be mature and responsible to get
as much support from the community as we can,'' said Greene. 

About 110 high school students in Cambridge boycotted the exam,
and between 60 and 70 fourth- and eighth-graders refused to take
it, students and parents said. Yesterday afternoon, they flooded the
steps of City Hall, carrying posters and balloons and chanting ''Be
a Hero, Take a Zero!''

In Brookline, high school students took a different tack, preferring
to walk out of the school as soon as the test was handed out.
Carrying signs that read, ''This is what real thinking looks like,'' and
''Standardize tests, standardize class, then standardize my mind!''
the students stood quietly in front of the school for the two hours the
test was administered. Most returned to classes when it was over.

Brookline Superintendent Jim Walsh said the students will receive
a grade of ''zero'' in their regular English and math courses. But in
a compromise move decided upon Tuesday, they will be given a
chance to ''buy back'' the zeros by writing a research paper on four
court cases that led to education reform. The paper will be due the
week of May 15, when the second round of MCAS testing begins.

This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 4/13/2000. 
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.