'Mariel' and MCAS reform
This issue is why I share "David's" story every chance I get. He wrote me the asparagus letter. David was not cognitively challenged but he did exhibit the classic signs of dsylexia, and today he would not pass the New York State Regents and thus would be denied the high school diploma that would certify him for jobs such as chef. as a chef. Or auto mechanic, barber, bus driver, draftsman, baker, broadcast technician, cardiology technologist, communications dispatcher, electroneurodiagnostic technologist, fingerprint classifier, forklift operator, graphics designer, heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration mechanic, hotel desk clerk, land surveyor, legal secretary, medical transcriptionist, numerical control machinist, optometric technician, paramedic, plumber, robotics technician, sheet metal worker, shorthand reporter/court reporter, solar energy system installer, small appliance repairer, surgical technician, tool and die maker, translator/interpreter, veterinary technician, ward clerk (medical), webpage designer. And so on. Look up job requirements on federal and state job banks.
Read the list again. People at such outfits as Education Trust and the U. S. Department of Education claim that a high school diploma is useless, that everybody must go to college. Every one of these occupations requires a high school diploma. When we shut so many people out of useful and important work by linking the high school diploma of a student who has successfully completed all required course work to a standardized test, we all lose.
The only reason MCAS and all the other high stakes assessments are "here to stay" is because educators won't stand up and say "No!"
No más!
Sí, se puede
Hey, Bush stole the slogan of the Children's Defense Fund; Obama has stolen from the United Farm Workers. But we can make it mean something again--for students--and for the survival of our profession.
Si, se puede.
No más! No más!
by Bruce C. Ditata
Like all of her cognitively challenged classmates, Mariel (not her real name) struggled with all academic tasks. She required special education intervention and small-group, remedial instruction.
Whenever she progressed in her high school classes — owing to her determination to succeed — it was barely enough to pass her classes. But Mariel, a high school graduate of the SouthCoast circa 1982, had a significant advantage despite her learning disabilities: Hers was a remarkable eye for detail.
So, armed with her diploma, Mariel embarked upon a career in a nationwide hotel chain, supervising chambermaids in the proper set-up for each new room occupancy.
Mariel's other advantage was not having to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test.
MCAS, the creation of state legislators Mark Roosevelt and Thomas Birmingham as part of the Education Reform Act of 1993, has forced public schools in the state to accountability under the requirements of meeting levels of proficiency for each student based on one cumulative testing instrument (MCAS) as a graduation requirement.
Curriculum frameworks in each subject area have focused the administration and teachers of every school in the commonwealth to "unwrap the strands." The refrain from those in the education field is that of resignation. "The MCAS is here to stay — deal with it," is their mantra.
What the curriculum planners and education reform gurus have not been able to unravel is how to make passing the MCAS accessible to the lower third of the student population. Meanwhile, students of color, diverse ethnicity, and those with special needs languish and are left behind, alarmingly and with increasing frequency.
The former superintendent of Boston's public schools, Thomas Payzant, and Birmingham, the former lawmaker and the leading cognoscente of the MCAS status quo, believe the MCAS is the student's best hope for a good public education and any attempt to replace it subverts the concept of a quality test instrument and lessens the chance for employment.
The reality of college performance and employment do not bear this position out. Greater numbers of students, despite MCAS "proficiency," require remedial classes in higher education, and greater numbers of African-Americans, Hispanics, and special education students are being shut out of the job market.
FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, maintains that "unlike standardized exit exams, the use of high-quality assessment methods, such as performances, exhibitions and portfolios, has been shown to promote the development of skills, knowledge and disposition actually valued in college and employment. Employers have said that they are more interested in examples of student work and problem-solving, such as portfolios, than they are in test results (or grades)."
School districts throughout the state, in their quest for more authentic learning for their students, are using all of the above. Special education students like Mariel are being assessed via the alternative assessment portfolio, but at the crossroads of each child's education — in the tenth grade — all bets are off, and their only path to a high school diploma lies in the single pathway — the winner-take-all MCAS.
Kids who cannot make it quit school and slowly, inexorably shuffle off to welfare rolls or, worse, become inmates in the prison system.
A few years ago, New Bedford's mayor, Scott Lang, tried to implement a bold vision of the high-stakes MCAS and the inequity therein, by attempting to award diplomas by other traditional means of assessment of student performance. The state of Massachusetts rewarded Lang's efforts by threatening to cut off the city's education funding, but efforts like those of the aforementioned Lang are being heard and acted upon.
In the Legislature, a series of bills are pending this session. All are characterized by Citizens for Public Schools as "aimed at improving and strengthening public schools," and the most promising is House bill No. 3660, lead sponsor Rep. Carl Sciortino, D-Medford, "An Act to Improve Assessment and Accountability to Ensure Students Acquire 21st Century Skills."
The aforementioned coalition devoted to public school improvement, CPS, summarizes H3660 as follows: "This bill supplants the 10th grade MCAS exams with a set of state-developed end-of-course assessments in mathematics, English, science, and history. Students must pass each of these classes to be determined competent to graduate from high school."
Teachers in classrooms, the front line of education, know one fundamental truth about their students, namely, that each child is capable of learning, that each child has a skill set that can be nurtured and encouraged. MCAS reform gives further credence to that immutable fact.
Then more kids like Mariel will have the chance for a productive life.
— Bruce C. Ditata
South Coast Today
2009-10-28
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091028/OPINION/910280315
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