LATINO PARENTS ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO USE OF MCAS HIGH-STAKES

PRESS RELEASE
Latino Parents Association
555 Amory Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02130
phone: 617-983-5529
fax: 617-983-8472

Contact: Sandra Alvarado
Phone: (617) 983-5529

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
9:00 a.m. November 15, 1999


Parents Association Not Surprised by the Poor Performance of Latino Students on the MCAS Exam

The Gaston Institute's analysis of the 1998 MCAS test results has  undoubtedly confirmed what the Latino Parents Association suspected and  feared. The fact that such high percentages of Latino and African American students failed MCAS raises suspicion not only about the test itself but also about a policy established by state and local policy makers which works to deny high school diplomas based entirely on the outcome of one single test.

The high failure rate overall should concern everyone, including the Legislature, the State Board of Education, and local school boards. However, in the latest round of allocating blame, parents and students have become the scapegoats. It is precious conceit on the part of the politicians, the policy-makers, and the news media to blame parents or students for the failure of this test. Bad policy should not be used to decide the academic and socio-economic future of our children. The State Board of Education's philosophical opposition to bilingual education has found fertile ground in the Department of Education's (DOE) myopic focus on validating the use of MCAS to deny diplomas to the most vulnerable populations of students. Since the abolition of the Bureau of Transitional Bilingual Education in the Education Reform Act of 1993, the DOE has not employed any staff with real expertise in the area of bilingual education to assist school districts with the implementation of such programs. Policy mandating that English language learners must take and pass the MCAS in English, after only three years in which to master the English language at a level equivalent to their monolingual English-speaking peers, is truly deficient.

Based on the information released to date by the DOE, it is clear that MCAS is not a valid instrument to be used to deny diplomas to Latino students and may be subject to legal challenge. The President's own Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic-Americans, recently concluded that high-stakes tests used singularly to deny high school diplomas is unsound educational policy.

Latino parents for too long have trusted politicians to make sound decisions regarding the educational future of their children. However, what's being offered is a lost generation served up for the potentially greater purpose of "improved education and accountability"—the so-called greater good for the greatest number. This is wholly unacceptable. Unless of course, their purpose is to assure Massachusetts will have a ready-made army of cheap labor to clean the office buildings in the downtowns of Boston, Lowell, Lawrence, Worcester and Springfield. Latino parents will not stand idly by and allow their children to be sacrificed in this manner.