King Open School in Cambridge: Resolution on the MCAS
March 13, 2000
To: Superintendent Bobbie DıAlessandro and members of the Cambridge School Committee
From: King Open School Council
The King Open School Council wishes to express our grave concern about the impact of the MCAS tests on curriculum and on our students. There are three major problems with these tests:
1. The time required for the tests in 4th and 8th grades is excessive, resulting in serious disruption of the curriculum in April and May. The long, open-ended time frame required for the tests is difficult for teachers to plan around, and especially for fourth graders the time required goes far beyond what is educationally reasonable at that grade level.
2. Some of the tests are heavily based on specific content, so that a high proportion of students are graded as "failing" even though they may be working hard and doing well in their studies. We believe that this sends damaging messages to students. It risks having students accept a definition of themselves as "failures." The problem is particularly severe for bilingual and special needs students.
3. There is inevitably a growing pressure on teachers to "teach to the test," not just in terms of broad curriculum areas, but in specific topic presentation. This pressure is reinforced by official statements that schools and teachers will be evaluated on the basis of MCAS results. Thus rather than simply measuring acquisition of skills and knowledge, these tests represent an attempt to impose a specific curriculum. Much of the richness and innovation which has characterized our curriculum could be lost if this pressure forces teachers to abandon existing in-depth curricula to pursue the narrower goal of maximizing test scores.
We call on the Superintendent and the Cambridge School Committee to rely not on MCAS results but on more educationally sound evaluation methods, which could include standardized tests of more reasonable length, alternative assessment measures, and portfolio evaluation.
