A pox on both of your standardized tests
AMHERST — When it comes to the question of standardized testing in our schools, we should listen to the educators. At a recent forum in Springfield, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education presented only two options: MCAS or PARC.
The special education teachers who spoke at that forum against the use of either test should be applauded. They gave examples of how the “one size fits all” approach to standardized testing does not work for students with special needs, like those who have dyslexia, anxiety and low self-esteem.
We should, in fact, reject both MCAS and PARC and give teachers the authority they deserve to evaluate students in ways they see fit. As it is now, teachers are required to teach to a state-authorized test and have little authority to influence what gets included.
I have worked with another group of students that also does not do well on standardized tests: English language learners. The MCAS tests are entirely too difficult for their level of English and do not represent the enormous growth in their acquisition of a new language. They are tested too often and the results tell very little.
A student stormed into my office one day, swearing he was going to be “tested to death!” As a 10th grader, identified as a student of special education and an English language learner, he has to take pre-tests and post-tests for his acquisition of English and then also takes three sets of MCAS in that same school year.
The school also gave him other standardized academic assessments at the beginning of the year for practice and to learn more about where he needed help. More than 28 days of school were dedicated to testing, almost 10 percent of the required hours of instruction for the year. Because science MCAS testing occurred this year in early June, this student ended the year not knowing if he passed the 10th grade.
The weight MCAS carries for graduation makes it difficult for a student to pass 10th grade if he or she did not also get proficiency on all three parts ( math, science, English) of the 10th grade MCAS. However hurtful these Lissa Pierce Bonifaz: A pox on both of your standardized tests | GazetteNet.com: