School Dept. responds to MCAS results
Published on December 22nd, 1999
STONHEAM, MA - While parents and students digest recently released MCAS scores, the school department is working on a detailed analysis of performance for presentation to the School Committee next month.
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Keroack advised the committee on Wednesday that a review of specific criteria is ongoing to evaluate Stone-ham's performance on the state's criteria-based exam. Action plans are also being developed in response to the findings.
MCAS (Massachusetts Com-prehensive Assessment Sys-tem) test results were released earlier this month to Massa-chusetts cities and towns regarding performance by public school fourth, eighth and 10th graders.
As the Stoneham Indepen-dent reported last week, Stoneham students scored above state average in most areas, and 38th out of 210 school districts, overall.
Still, state averages have proved a disappointment with the majority of passing grades falling into the "Needs Improvement" category. While this is only the second year of implementation, and refinement of the test continues at the state level, a passing MCAS score will be required for high school graduation beginning with the class of 2003.
In summary, Keroack advised that elementary principals and program supervisors are reviewing specific criteria to evaluate student performance.
"Every year the test gets a little tighter," Keroack said and explained some of the areas of particular concern to the reviewers.
Comparisons between this year's and last year's tests are being reviewed with regard to difficulty, content, familiarity of question type to student and make-up of class tested, as well as differences in testing conditions between the two years.
In addition, consideration of how well curriculum is aligned with content of this year's test, identification of test topics with which students have had the greatest difficulty, and evaluation of performance per question type (open response, multiple choice, etc.) are included in the review.
Analysis of students at each performance level (failing, needs improvement, proficient, advanced) is also being made.
"...secondary principals and program supervisors of record will work together .... to answer these questions over the next two months so that we can develop a detailed analysis and action plan by the February School Committee meeting (on Jan. 13th we'll present initial MCAS data to the Committee)," noted Keroack in a letter to staff.
Keroack stressed that the analysis is aimed at the entire education curriculum and not just at the fourth, eighth and 10th grades which actually take the MCAS test each spring.
"This is a K through 12 initiative for all teachers and staff," Keroack said.
A passing grade on the MCAS this year is a score of 220.
"It is our job to get them to that point," said Keroack.
School Committee Chair-woman Jeanne Craigie acknowledged that at the elementary level, principals are asked to do an enormous amount of work with regard to MCAS, in addition to their regular responsibilities. Develop-ment of discipline-specific supervisory roles to assist in coordinating elementary curriculum, she said, must be considered in the budget process.
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