Schools prepare to help MCAS-failing students
Published on November 29th, 2000
STONEHAM, MA - The third annual running of the numbers has led again to diverging conclusions, but at the finish line all Spartans — beginning with the Class of 2003 — must pass MCAS to graduate.
MCAS — the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment exam — is a graduation requirement for all public and charter school students in Massachusetts under the Education Reform Act of 1993.
Some educators think the Department of Education (DOE) is full of bull for sacrificing children on the alter of accountability.
"It would have been advantageous if the DOE had waited until everything was in place five years before making the MCAS a graduation requirement," said Stoneham Assistant Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth Keroack.
None of the frameworks have been in place more than two years. The MCAS social studies section, taken by eighth graders in 2000, is based on a curriculum that has been revised nine times in less than five years. (Passing scores on the social studies and the science and technology sections are not yet graduation requirements.)
The results
Among 210 districts testing fourth-, eighth- and 10th-grade students in English, math and science and technology, Stoneham has dropped from 38th place in 1999 to 58th in 2000. But Stoneham’s combined average scores for all grades in all sections rose from 2,128 in 1999 to 2,147 in 2000.
Positive trends at the state level include an overall increase in passing scores, improvement in fourth-grade math and science and technology scores, improvement in eighth-grade English scores, and improvement in 10th-grade math scores.
The major negative trend in the 2000 statewide assessment is the decline of scores as students progress through the system. In 2000, 34 percent of Massachusetts 10th graders failed the English section, and 45 percent failed math, compared with 13 percent English and 18 percent math failure among fourth graders. Although this trend compares different groups of students, the same decline is seen in math and science from 1998 eighth-grade scores to 2000 10th-grade scores.
In Stoneham, however, English and math scores increase or remain stable as the Spartans march from grade school to graduation. This is encouraging, Keroack said, because the 10th-grade test is the final hurdle over which every student must leap to graduate and bound into his future.
See accompanying chart for 2000 results...
The goal
Students must score at least 220 on the 10th grade level English and math sections to graduate from high school.
Students who fail English, math or both in the spring of their sophomore year will have at least four more chances to take the section(s) which they failed, according to a vague DOE plan. The times of these retests have not been set.
A student gets 200 points for signing his name on a section of the MCAS. From 200-219 are failing scores. Scores from 220-239 are passing but labeled "needs improvement." Scores from 240-259 are "proficient." And scores from 260-280 are "advanced."
What is this MCAS?
The MCAS is a criteria-based exam, not a standardized test. The test is given on paper, not through a computer.
The DOE commissioned a private company to develop the test, which was first given to students in the spring of 1998. DOE officials decide how questions will be weighted and where the lines will be drawn to indicate passing, needs improvement, proficient, and advanced ability. Students are scored against these criteria, not against each other.
The test is intended to evaluate how successful school districts are in teaching state curricula required by the DOE.
Keroack said that time is needed to train personnel and buy materials after every curriculum revision. Thus, the state is holding schools and ultimately students responsible for lessons not yet learned.
"But school districts can improve," Keroack said. "I think we are one of the communities proving that."
What now?
The greatest benefit from MCAS, in Keroack’s opinion, is the vast, detailed information about individual student ability.
Stoneham administrators plan to use this data in two ways to better educate the children of Stoneham:
First, teachers will use the detailed information about the strengths and weaknesses of their students to create custom-made strategies and lesson plans to teach the frameworks.
Second, the MCAS data is being used as this article is typed to form a model for an Academic Support Services grant from the state. If all goes as planned, Keroack said, Stoneham will receive $139,000 from the state to fund focused tutorials outside of school hours for students in danger of failing the MCAS.
"We’re thinking these are going to be small groups, co-taught, mostly for secondary (high school) students," Keroack said.
The goal is to give individual attention to specific deficiencies, such as trouble with the open response format.
The details of the program are still fuzzy because the numbers aren’t all crunched. The initial results do not provide a total number of failing students at each level. If, for example, 10 10th graders failed math and 10 failed English, there could be anywhere from 10 to 20 failing students.
"Stoneham never says the test is everything...," Keroack said. "...but it’s a reality."
So the school, the parents and the students deal with it.
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