Northampton School Committee Resolution on the MCAS
Approved at meeting on May 11, 2000
The 1993 Education Reform Act states: "(t)he system 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."
The Northampton School Committee agrees that good educational practice calls for learning to be assessed in a variety of ways, including standardized and informal tests, teacher observation and student portfolios. Multiple and varied measures would assure that all learning styles are valued, recognized, and considered, and that all students are assessed fairly and comprehensively. One test cannot give a comprehensive assessment of a studentıs abilities or a schoolıs success. We are opposed to judging the educational effectiveness of our schools based solely on our average scores on the statewide standardized tests.
We recognize that the Northampton Public Schools have the responsibility to carry out all state programs that are mandatory for local school systems. We expect students to do their best. At the same time it is our right, and even our duty as a duly elected school committee, to evaluate educational programs that are carried out in our school system. If we feel that a program is not achieving its intended aims, then it is our responsibility to publicly express such judgments, as we are doing in this statement. We also support the rights of our faculty and staff to voice their concerns about the MCAS, although we will expect them to carry out their responsibilities with respect to the administration of MCAS.
The Northampton School Committee calls upon the Massachusetts Department of Education to modify the current Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing program which makes important educational decisions affecting individual students and schools on the basis of studentsıperformance on a single uniform set standardized tests. We support the replacement of the single MCAS with an alternative system of accountability that includes multiple measures of assessment.
