Low MCAS scores no surprise to School Dept.
Published on December 9th, 1998
STONEHAM, MA -From the outside looking in, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Statewide Assessment System (MCAS) exam scores for the Town of Stoneham may look low. If one were inside the School Department, however, hearing the early indications in the form of grumbles from the media and educators, the results may have been somewhat positive.
The results
On Wednesday morning, the results of the MCAS exam for Stoneham students were unveiled and showed that improvement in both the local approach to education and the newly adopted state exam is necessary.
The MCAS exams were taken by students in grades 4, 8 and 10 this past May. While the scores in grades 8 and 10 could be considered stable given that over 41 percent of students tested proficiently in all areas, students in grade 4 appeared to have a difficult time with the exam. A complete list of scores appears on page 10.
According to Stoneham Superintendent Joseph Connelly, the scores were in the expected range and give clear indications of where the School Department needs to go.
"From the results of this first MCAS exam, it is clear that we have a lot of work to do here in Stoneham and in the state," he said. "It (the MCAS exam) tests how well all the school systems in Massachusetts align with the new curriculum and frameworks. We plan to use the MCAS results as a tool to help us diagnose (areas that need more work)."
Connelly pointed to the Stoneham school system's strong marks in English for grades 8 an 10 as an area of accomplishment. In grade 8, 81 percent of students were either proficient or advanced. In grade 10, 74 percent reached those high standards.
"That certainly is encouraging as a starting point," he said. "The English Department in Stoneham has worked very hard to implement the new framework."
Although the English Department's work was credited with part of the success, Keroack explained that the MCAS test questions, unlike the math and science & technology areas, appeared to be in a more classic and straight forward form in the English portion. Educators have speculated that questions in the math and science & technology sections call for students to think in ways in which they are unaccustomed.
Keroack indicated that the results in the science and technology portion of the exam indicate that Stoneham is moving in the right direction. In the tenth grade, 41 percent of students scored in the top two brackets; in the eighth grade, 42 percent of students accomplished the same feat; and, in the fourth grade, 59 percent earned either proficient of advanced scores. Now in its first year of full implementation in Stoneham, the science and technology area is the first framework to be adopted systemwide and is the only area that showed consistency in all three grades.
"There are some encouraging results to this test, but we have to realize that, statewide, there's a lot of work to be done on the test itself," Connelly said. "We're still in a learning process."
In comparison to state scores, Stoneham students fared quite well, beating out the state average in all areas except for fourth grade math where 27 percent of local students scored in the top two brackets while 34 percent of students statewide accomplished the feat.
Grade 4
One area that appears to need work on both the local and statewide fronts is the fourth grade. In the English portion of the Grade 4 test, only 22 percent of students were graded proficiently while the remaining 78 percent earned needs improvement or failing grades. Similar results were seen in the mathematics portion where 27 percent of students earned either proficient or advanced scores while the other 73 percent earned needs improvement or failing marks. In the science and technology portion of the MCAS, however, 59 percent of fourth graders earned at least a proficient mark while the remaining 41 percent fell below the standard.
According to Stoneham's Assistant Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Keroack, the fourth grade scores most likely show that the MCAS exam needs some adjustment.
"As a person who knows about validity and the quality of testing, I'd say that the fourth grade tests would be looked at very critically," she explained. "I'm not sure that the test as it currently stands tends to look at developmental issues. I don't think it's so much an alignment issue."
The message
Both Keroack and Connelly stressed that the MCAS tests not only evaluate student learning, but the alignment of school systems to state frameworks in each educational area.
"Like most school systems, we have taken the documentation (framework guidelines passed down from the state in each major area of education) and put our efforts toward aligning our curriculum in the most advantageous way," Keroack explained. "It takes a while to totally align curriculum responsibly."
The School Department will mail out each student's individual results to parents on Thursday afternoon. Parents should receive these results over the weekend, Connelly said, and are invited to attend parent forums on December 16 and 17 (from more information, see page 9).
The superintendent explained, however, that most parents will not have to worry if their children tested poorly on this initial MCAS exam. "It's not that a child is a failure," he assured, "it's just that the curriculum is probably not aligned yet because of a time standard."
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