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MCAS Mandate `Crazy,' Boniface Says
MARLBOROUGH -- It's taken a week to sink in, but now that it has, Superintendent Rose Marie Boniface says she's appalled at the state's newest mandate regarding standardized testing.
Commissioner of Education David Driscoll announced last week that limited English proficient students are now required to take the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test regardless of their capacity to speak and understand the language.
"Most of the kids that are new arrivals who have had less than a year of instruction, they're going to be expected to take a test that more than likely, they won't be able to read, process or respond to in any way," Boniface said. "It's nuts. It's absolutely crazy."
Boniface said the new rule means trouble for the school district and its 848 students whose first language is not English.
"There are people who study a language for years and years and they still have to translate in their own head before they have any output," Boniface said. "You don't start thinking in (a different language) until you're in your fourth, fifth or sixth year in the language study. You're asking the kids who've had seven months to have some output. One size fits all doesn't work with kids. Clearly, each kid is different."
Prior to the newest Department of Education requirement, some if not all limited English proficient, or LEP students, weren't required to take the MCAS tests. But to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act, all LEP students must participate in all state administered academic assessment tests without exception, according to the DOE.
In a letter sent to superintendents across the state, Driscoll said in rare cases some LEP students who arrive in the United States just prior to a testing period may be exempt from the exam.
Those cases will be considered only if the student arrives in the district after Oct. 1 of the current school year. The principal must also determine what, if any, prior English instruction the student has had and whether the student would be able to read the test. Depending on the results, he or she could be exempt.
"They come in September and they've got seven months of instruction before they take the English composition (portion)," Boniface said. "I think every superintendent is concerned about this. We all believe that the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act, the goals are fine. The goals are appropriate. For the kids to become proficient in English however...there is no magic bullet."
Under the new requirement, no test scores will be assigned to excused LEP students. In turn, the exemptions would have no direct impact on MCAS results overall, Boniface said.
At the same time, to comply with the federal mandate the School Department must test 95 percent of all students enrolled to meet adequate yearly progress.
"You can't exempt more than 5 percent of your kids," Boniface said, adding that even if a student qualifies for an exemption, chances are the 5 percent cap would prevent them from the exception.
The effect on MCAS scores would also be significant, Boniface said, since about 18 percent of the total school population is LEP students.
"Most schools, because we have a population of English language learners across every building, we are not going to make our target. They're clearly setting schools up to fail. I think politically, it's designed to say that public education isn't good, which is a lie."
The latest blow from the DOE, coupled with new standards and mandates that many school officials feel are misdirected, Boniface said she finds herself constantly frustrated.
"You don't have any choice and there's nobody listening," she said of the DOE and state legislators. "When (they) set up all these conditions so you can't look good no matter how hard you try, it's demoralizing. People that don't work in education are making decisions about education. I think that frustrates those who are in the trenches working.
"I feel very frustrated about saying to the people I count on every single day that these conditions are absurd but I expect you to do the same quality work every day. People are being set up. Part of the agenda is to make public education look bad and to say that (the district's) not making the progress they should be making."
Now with required testing for all LEP students, Boniface said the district's MCAS scores, which have slowly been rising, will start to slide in the opposite direction.
"It's going to be skewed," she said of test results, which in turn determine if a school is meeting its yearly goals. "Our scores will go down."
— Kristen Bradley
MCAS mandate `crazy,' Boniface says
MetroWest Daily News
Feb. 21, 2003
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/local_regional/marl_mcas02212003.htm
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