FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2002
Contacts:
Jackie King, CARE coordinator:
617-441-0863 or 617-864-4810
Alan Price, Cambridge School Committee
617-492-0117
CAMBRIDGE VOTES FOR MCAS-FREE DIPLOMAS
In a responsible effort to uphold the law and
protect students, the Cambridge School Committee
voted 4 to 3 Tuesday night to continue awarding
diplomas to high school seniors who meet local
graduation requirements, regardless of their MCAS
scores.
After serious deliberations on the possible
consequences of their action, the school board
voted for a strong resolution, submitted by School
Committee member Alan Price, to protect the
students in the class of 2003 and beyond, who face
possible denial of a diploma solely on the basis
of a single, paper-and-pencil, standardized test
designed by a distant company in Texas.
School board members Alan Price, Richard Harding,
Alice Turkel, and Nancy Walser voted in favor of
the resolution; board members Fred Fantini, Joe
Grassi, and Michael Sullivan voted against it.
"We are confident that we are upholding the 1993
Education Reform Act," Alan Price said. "Agencies
sometimes overstep their bounds and set forth
regulations that do not conform to the law. When
that happens, it is our responsibility to follow
the law as best as we can."
Price told the committee Tuesday that it was
essential that its members act this spring, rather
than next year, because the MCAS exam is hurting
students now. "Many are becoming discouraged and
talking about dropping out," he noted. "They need
to know that someone is coming to their defense.
With this vote, we are trying to communicate to
the state that this is a serious and urgent
situation. We hope to open a dialogue with the
Department of Education. We hope that eventually
they will do the right thing and the regulation
will change."
School board member Alice Turkel stressed that
Cambridge was not voting for a two-tier diploma
system such as the "certificates of completion"
proposed by the state, which would be given to
students who completed local courses but did not
pass the MCAS. Under the statešs plan, they would
not be considered high school graduates. "The
two-tiered system would be class- and race-
based," she said. "It would be demeaning to our
students."
More than 70 Cambridge parents, teachers, and
students gathered at Cambridge Rindge and Latin
High School to support Pricešs resolution.
Eighteen speakers presented informed, eloquent
testimony about the damage the MCAS -- and, in
particular, the graduation requirement -- is
doing to students and schools. Paul Toner,
president of the Cambridge Teachers Association,
presented a petition signed by more than 100
teachers in support of the resolution.
Cambridge is the second school committee in the
state to pass such a resolution (and the first
larger, urban community to do so). The 18-member
Hampshire Regional school board unanimously passed
a similar measure last October, and has stood
firmly by its decision in the face of a
threatening letter from Education Commissioner
Driscoll. A number of other school boards are
actively considering diploma-granting resolutions,
including Brookline, Somerville, Northampton,
Amherst, Falmouth, Danvers, and others who are not
yet ready to speak publicly.
At the end of the four-hour heated meeting
Tuesday, Price said, "We have to show that our
School Committee has the courage and the will to
stand up for what we believe is rightAt one time,
many people said that segregation was legal too."
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Resolution passed by the Cambridge School
Committee
By a 4-3 vote on April 23, 2002
Submitted by Alan Price
Whereas the 1993 Education Reform Act of the
General Laws of Massachusetts states that the
system for determining academic competencies
"Shall employ a variety of assessment
instruments. As much as is practicable, especially
in the case of students whose performance is
difficult to assess using conventional methods,
such instruments shall include consideration of
work samples, projects, and portfolios, and shall
facilitate authentic and direct gauges of student
performance" and
Whereas the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System test (MCAS test) does not support different
styles of learning, communicating, or
demonstrating student performance, and
Whereas the State Department of Education has put
forth a policy that would deny high school
diplomas to students who fail the MCAS test,
regardless of their other academic achievements
and competencies as demonstrated by other
assessment instruments, and
Whereas there is no proven, educational rationale
for basing high school graduation or any grade
promotion on performance in a single, standardized
test, regardless of how many times the test is
administered, and
Whereas the denial of high school diplomas is a
discriminatory consequence that will fall
disproportionately upon those families who are too
poor to send their children to private or
parochial schools, and
Whereas the anticipated consequences of the MCAS
test will harm students by increasing high school
dropout rates, and
Whereas the MCAS test is not adequately sensitive
to the circumstances of special education
students, students entering the public schools
from households that speak a first language other
than standard English, and students whose
immediate aims focus on employment rather than
higher education, and
Whereas the standards of achievement set by the
MCAS test alone are on their face arbitrary as
demonstrated by the fact that easier tests are
administered to those who fail, and
Whereas the Cambridge School Committee has the
legal responsibility to award diplomas to students
who have fulfilled local requirements for
graduation in order to recognize their academic
achievement and permit their further education and
employment,
Be it resolved that the Cambridge School Committee
will continue to uphold the legal and educational
standards established by the 1993 Education Reform
Act, and
Be it further resolved that the Cambridge School
Committee continues to support testing when it is
used as one of a variety of assessment
instruments, and
Be it further resolved that the Cambridge School
Committee authorizes the Superintendent to grant
high school diplomas to all students who meet the
requirements for graduation regardless of her or
his MCAS test scores, and
Be it further resolved that the Cambridge School
Committee directs the Superintendent to develop a
method of integrating the competency assessments
from the MCAS test, and not the score of the MCAS
test, into the portfolio of direct and authentic
assessment, and that this method be presented to
the Cambridge School Committee for discussion by
February 2004, and
Be it further resolved that this resolution shall
be communicated to the Cambridge City Council, the
members of our State House delegation, the
Massachusetts Association of School Committees,
and the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
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