Teachers, school officials debate merits of testing
Civil rights issues cited on both sides
The emotionally-charged issue of standardized testing was the basis of a hearing before the state’s Joint Committee on Education last Thursday, with advocates on both sides of the issue describing it as a matter of civil rights.
The collection of bills in question, chief among them House Bill 340 from Marjorie Decker of Cambridge, would place a three-year moratorium on the use of standardized testing both as a graduation requirement and a metric of teacher evaluation.
Supporters of the bills packed the room. The day before, the recently-formed Massachusetts Education Justice Reform group – a coalition that includes Citizens for Public Schools, Jobs with Justice, the Massachusetts Teacher Association, the state branch of the American Federation of Teachers, and the Boston Teacher’s Union – had issued a media alert regarding their attendance at the hearing.
The proceedings began with testimony from several state officials, who warned about possibly negative outcomes if the current testing requirements were waived.
Secretary of Education Jim Peyser recounted the history of school reform in Massachusetts, tying the 1993 law that created the MCAS to the state’s “outstanding results” in student performance in the decades since. He said that while Massachusetts already was doing well prior to MCAS, its continued improvement since then was a result of testing.
“The state assessment system helped,” he said, describing those who criticized it as “reviving arguments from 20 years ago.”
“This administration is not about to walk away from state-wide assessments,” he said firmly.
Mitchell Chester, Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, warned that the bills rolling back testing would “put us in non-compliance with federal education policy.”
In 2012, Massachusetts was granted a flexibility waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act, the latest version of federal education policy enacted under President Bush in 2001. The anti-testing bills, he said, would either put that flexibility waiver at risk or jeopardize $200 million in federal Title I funds.
Chester added that the potential funding cut “would disproportionately impact urban school districts with disproportionately low income, English Language Learner students.”
Unequal playing field
Scott Lang
However, Scott Lang, who served as mayor of New Bedford from 2006 to 2012, followed them with a passionate testimony against testing, based on what he characterized as all-too-common observations.
“Many of these kids [who don’t pass the tests] are part of the achievement gap, below the poverty line,” he said. “We’re setting up a caste system. …We can’t tell someone, ‘You don’t get a diploma, even though you would’ve if you went to Tabor,’” he said, referring to the private school located in Buzzards Bay.
Private schools are exempt from the testing graduation requirement that applies to public schools.
“I believe in assessment, I believe in accountability — I don’t believe, though, in setting up a system for failure,” he said. “I’ve seen an awful lot of kids locked out of society because of this test.”
Other bill supporters echoed similar equity concerns as the hearing moved from the small room in which it began to Gardner Auditorium to accommodate the large turnout.
“We think few would argue that resources differ significantly from district to district,” testified Juan Cofield, President for the NAACP New England Area Conference.
“Some are fortunate and some are not so fortunate,” he said. “It’s a matter of resources and the equal education we provide for all our citizens.”
Barbara Fields of the Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts voiced similar concerns.
“The overuse and misuse of high-stakes testing has resulted in the denial of high school diplomas, especially to economically disadvantaged children,” she said.
Others focused on the disparate impact that they said testing requirements had on students with learning disabilities and non-native English speakers.
“I’m a fan of standards, but in what moral universe is it acceptable to have standards that neglect ELL and Special Education students?” asked Dr. Louis Kruger, an associate professor at Northeastern University who specializes in school psychology.
He added that while an alternative assessment exists for special education students, it is a “dead end” for almost all who attempt it. He said that last year, out of 964 special education students who attempted the ELA assessment, only one was able to score the required minimum score of “needs improvement” or higher.
Civil rights cited both ways
However, concerns about civil rights and education equity were voiced just as forcefully from those who testified against the bills, saying that standardized testing provided them with the best tools to elevate their performance and better serve their students.
One teacher who testified in favor of standardized tests provided the most emotional statements of the day.
“This is a civil rights issue,” said Bernadine Lormilus, a 5th grade teacher at the Channing Elementary School in Hyde Park, her voice wavering as she began to cry.
“All our students need to have some standards. … We need to do what we need to do for these children, because they want to learn, and we can’t ignore them.”
She read aloud letters from her students that conveyed their dreams for their futures and referred to the standardized tests as helping to facilitate their education.
“They want to be surgeons and doctors,” she said through tears to the Joint Committee on Education.
Kalimah Rahim, who teaches AP Literature at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, said she opposed the bills up for discussion because of her personal experience in a Boston public schools system that did not adequately serve many of her peers.
“When I was in school in the ‘70s, it was possible to graduate from high school and be functionally illiterate,” she said.
She added that as an AP teacher, a structured curriculum proved helpful.
“I’m not teaching to the test – I’m teaching skills,” she said.
She clarified in a conversation with the Banner after the hearing that even though she taught AP classes, her class was open to a broader range of students than one might assume, including students with a range of special education needs.
Another woman who did not want to give her name or the name of her school district for fear of how it might impact her professionally testified in favor of the testing requirement. As a special education teacher, she said, the requirement provided her students with valuable lessons.
“Many of my students do not pass the MCAS on their first try – in their own words, it’s because they ‘Didn’t really try,’” she said. “It teaches them even if they didn’t pass the first time, they need to regroup and try harder next time. I can think of no better lesson [for life],” she concluded.
Brittany Vetter, an English teacher from the charter school Excel Academy in Chelsea, testified in favor of the testing requirement. She acknowledged that while society was “not fair,” testing was a useful tool for teachers to help address such concerns.
“Our only option is to defy the odds and gain access to opportunities to change the system,” she concluded. To that end, she said, standardized testing had helped her to be more effective as a teacher.
“Student tests are an imperfect measurement,” she added. “However, without them, we would have not method for seeing how our students stack up and how to alter our approach – [and] how we are delivering on the promise to help students defy the odds.”
Shifting policy context
Aside from the broader issue of whether testing should be done at all, Massachusetts is undergoing changes with respect to which test to use.
While most are familiar with the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) standardized test, the state is now wrapping up a two-year test-drive of an alternative assessment tool known as PARCC. During the trial period, about half of Massachusetts school districts opted to use PARCC instead of MCAS for grades 3 through 8, with the exception of the larger districts of Boston, Springfield and Worcester, where the choice was made on a school-by-school basis.
A final decision on the implementation of PARCC statewide will be made this fall by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. A spokesperson for the department reached by phone could not give a more specific time for the decision than the fall.
The 10th-grade MCAS test will continue to serve as the benchmark graduation requirement through the class of 2019.
Members of the Boston Student Advisory Council have voiced their hopes for changes on testing regardless of the test used.
“BSAC believes that standardized tests can provide helpful information to teachers and administrators, but we have concerns about how the information is used and how we see it negatively impacting education,” the group said in an emailed statement. The group drafted a series of recommendations in partnership with another group known as Youth Organizers United for a Now Generation, calling for not only the end of standardized testing as a graduation requirement and an evaluation method for teachers, but also a limit of three standardized tests per student – once in elementary, middle and high school.
