Effects of No MCAS on AB Students
BY ADI RAMAN '23
It is safe to say that 2020 has not been the best year. With the catastrophic COVID-19 outbreak, many flaws within the societal and governmental system of the United States have become even more apparent. In fact, the pandemic has been so disastrous that it has caused schools in Massachusetts and across the country to close down for the remainder of the school year. This subsequently forced Governor Charlie Baker to cancel all 2020 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing.
While students may be relieved that they don’t have to worry about the test this year, this cancellation raises questions about how useful MCAS truly is in the first place. In actuality, not having MCAS testing in 2020 will not be as detrimental to student and teacher evaluation in the AB School District as one might think.
Multiple events led to the MCAS testing cancellation. Typically, statewide accountability measures such as the MCAS are mandated by the federal government, but the Secretary of Education waived this requirement in late March. Many governors officially cancelled their state-specific standardized tests a couple weeks after schools were closed across the country. After seeing other states’ decisions, some Massachusetts citizens began creating petitions to cancel MCAS as well. Recommendations from Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) pressured Charlie Baker to decide if MCAS testing would still happen. Finally, on April 10th, Governor Baker signed a bill to officially cancel this year’s testing.
According to the Massachusetts government, MCAS’s purpose is “to strengthen public learning and to see if students are receiving challenging instruction in line with the state curriculum.” While MCAS is successful in these aspects, the problem is that little has been done in the past to aid under-achieving students, even after seeing poor testing results.
Acton-Boxborough has historically done very well on the MCAS: in 2018, 82% of sophomores scored advanced in English Language Arts and 86% scored advanced in Mathematics. These scores can be contributed to the school’s commitment that all groups of the student body, including English Language Learners and free-and-reduced lunch students, have the skills and support to succeed on the MCAS. Because of consistently good reports, there has never been a need for additional aid; doing well on MCAS has become a rinse and repeat process in the district. The majority of schools that do need help, as Lisa Guisbond of The Bay State Banner reports, are inner-city schools with lower middle-class students. In fact, almost all of the students in these schools score lower than the “Meet Expectations” category. While the point of MCAS is to target and help underfunded schools to improve student performance, Guisbond states that these schools have not received adequate funds in previous years. Consequently, testing scores in these districts remained poor. In fact, a 2015 report done by the state commission found that some schools were being underfunded by up to two billion dollars.
Previously, the Massachusetts government has never clearly explained why these schools were not given proper attention. Many families in these school districts believed that government officials were using their annual budget to prioritize new facilities and projects over the public institutions that already exist. As a result of this frustration, a dozen parents in seven low-income Massachusetts districts filed a lawsuit against the state on June 13, 2019, arguing that consistent underfunding of certain schools is unconstitutional. Whether it was solely due to the lawsuit or also years of criticism, the Massachusetts government took charge of the situation last November.
Eventually, the Massachusetts House and Senate updated the way schools were funded which had remained untouched since 1993. The bill, known as the Student Opportunity Act, states that $1.5 billion dollars will be invested in Massachusetts school districts over the course of seven years. Rep. Alice Peisch of the Community of Education explains, “This bill ensures we always put the students first. We can’t lose sight of that.” By giving these schools proper funding, MCAS scores will theoretically increase, although only time will tell if that will be the case.
Although the funding problem has been addressed, the MCAS system has still been met with criticism for a myriad of different reasons. Some feel it is an inaccurate assessment of student abilities, while others think that schools have been narrowly centralizing student education to prepare for the MCAS instead of focusing on the core curriculum. Before the MCAS was implemented in 1993, Massachusetts was still a top-performing state for education; in other words, MCAS has not directly improved state education in the past thirty years. Regardless of this fact, it is clear that the testing system has served its purpose of determining which schools are not receiving proper funding for resources and other facilities. Now that the Massachusetts government has taken action to fiscally aid these schools, the future of MCAS is becoming all the more positive.
Needless to say, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is a highly controversial concept, but across AB, it has been met with no more than a few questions and minor complaints. MCAS has become something that AB students just have to “get over with,” having almost no impact on the school district. Students of all races, genders, and sexualities are overall able to perform consistently well. Now that the Student Opportunity Act has been passed, there is hope that inner-city schools’ students will also be able to receive the education they deserve and perform well on the MCAS in future years.
While students may be relieved that they don’t have to worry about the test this year, this cancellation raises questions about how useful MCAS truly is in the first place. In actuality, not having MCAS testing in 2020 will not be as detrimental to student and teacher evaluation in the AB School District as one might think.
Multiple events led to the MCAS testing cancellation. Typically, statewide accountability measures such as the MCAS are mandated by the federal government, but the Secretary of Education waived this requirement in late March. Many governors officially cancelled their state-specific standardized tests a couple weeks after schools were closed across the country. After seeing other states’ decisions, some Massachusetts citizens began creating petitions to cancel MCAS as well. Recommendations from Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) pressured Charlie Baker to decide if MCAS testing would still happen. Finally, on April 10th, Governor Baker signed a bill to officially cancel this year’s testing.
According to the Massachusetts government, MCAS’s purpose is “to strengthen public learning and to see if students are receiving challenging instruction in line with the state curriculum.” While MCAS is successful in these aspects, the problem is that little has been done in the past to aid under-achieving students, even after seeing poor testing results.
Acton-Boxborough has historically done very well on the MCAS: in 2018, 82% of sophomores scored advanced in English Language Arts and 86% scored advanced in Mathematics. These scores can be contributed to the school’s commitment that all groups of the student body, including English Language Learners and free-and-reduced lunch students, have the skills and support to succeed on the MCAS. Because of consistently good reports, there has never been a need for additional aid; doing well on MCAS has become a rinse and repeat process in the district. The majority of schools that do need help, as Lisa Guisbond of The Bay State Banner reports, are inner-city schools with lower middle-class students. In fact, almost all of the students in these schools score lower than the “Meet Expectations” category. While the point of MCAS is to target and help underfunded schools to improve student performance, Guisbond states that these schools have not received adequate funds in previous years. Consequently, testing scores in these districts remained poor. In fact, a 2015 report done by the state commission found that some schools were being underfunded by up to two billion dollars.
Previously, the Massachusetts government has never clearly explained why these schools were not given proper attention. Many families in these school districts believed that government officials were using their annual budget to prioritize new facilities and projects over the public institutions that already exist. As a result of this frustration, a dozen parents in seven low-income Massachusetts districts filed a lawsuit against the state on June 13, 2019, arguing that consistent underfunding of certain schools is unconstitutional. Whether it was solely due to the lawsuit or also years of criticism, the Massachusetts government took charge of the situation last November.
Eventually, the Massachusetts House and Senate updated the way schools were funded which had remained untouched since 1993. The bill, known as the Student Opportunity Act, states that $1.5 billion dollars will be invested in Massachusetts school districts over the course of seven years. Rep. Alice Peisch of the Community of Education explains, “This bill ensures we always put the students first. We can’t lose sight of that.” By giving these schools proper funding, MCAS scores will theoretically increase, although only time will tell if that will be the case.
Although the funding problem has been addressed, the MCAS system has still been met with criticism for a myriad of different reasons. Some feel it is an inaccurate assessment of student abilities, while others think that schools have been narrowly centralizing student education to prepare for the MCAS instead of focusing on the core curriculum. Before the MCAS was implemented in 1993, Massachusetts was still a top-performing state for education; in other words, MCAS has not directly improved state education in the past thirty years. Regardless of this fact, it is clear that the testing system has served its purpose of determining which schools are not receiving proper funding for resources and other facilities. Now that the Massachusetts government has taken action to fiscally aid these schools, the future of MCAS is becoming all the more positive.
Needless to say, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is a highly controversial concept, but across AB, it has been met with no more than a few questions and minor complaints. MCAS has become something that AB students just have to “get over with,” having almost no impact on the school district. Students of all races, genders, and sexualities are overall able to perform consistently well. Now that the Student Opportunity Act has been passed, there is hope that inner-city schools’ students will also be able to receive the education they deserve and perform well on the MCAS in future years.