Thinking Citizen Blog — The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Ballot Question — Easy Or Hard? The Principles That Conflict, The Details That Matter
Thinking Citizen Blog — Friday is Education and Education Policy Day
Today’s Topic: the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Ballot Question — easy or hard? the principles that conflict, the details that matter
On November 5th, 2024 voters in Massachusetts will have a chance to change the lives of thousands of students. Have you made a decision? What principles or facts drive that decision? Was your decision easy or hard? Why?
Senator Elizabeth Warren, the progressive Democratic Senator, is a proponent of elimination of the MCAS requirement — that is a Yes vote on Question 2. On the other hand progressive Democratic Governor Maura Healey is strong opponent of the elimination of the MCAS requirement. Both feel they are championing the cause of justice.
Today, a review of the arguments and the interest groups on each side.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
ELIZABETH WARREN — against the MCAS requirement — teaching to the test, one-size-fits all = bad
1. “Our teachers are telling us that the consequence of this test is actually to teach our kids less, because we’re teaching them more about test-taking skills.” (Warren)
2. “They want an opportunity to help shape a broader view of which children get a high school diploma. And I think that’s something that we should support.” (Warren)
3. “Warren’s position puts her in line with the state’s largest teachers union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, as well as the broader electorate. In a recen Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll, 58 percent of voters said they would support ending the MCAS requirement.”
GOVERNOR MAURA HEALEY — Keep the MCAS! one standard for all is good, high standards are better than low
1. “Massachusetts has the best public schools in the country because of our high standards, not in spite of them.”
2. “Eliminating the MCAS requirement means that we won’t have the same standard for schools across the state.”
3. “We’ll have different standards in Randolph than we will in Reading. And that’s a system that I don’t believe sets us up for success. I don’t believe that the standards should be different for students in our state depending on what ZIP code they’re living in and attending school in.”
NB: “Business groups are also fighting to preserve the requirement, arguing that doing away with it could hurt the state’s economic competitiveness.”
BROADER PERSPECTIVE — which state or country has the best system of standardized testing? which state or country offers the best-diversified set of paths to a full range of fulfilling careers? Which state or overseas systems do you know best? What might the rest of us learn from your experience?
1. Is it Germany’s system of apprenticeships that inspires you the most?
2. Does it worry you that teachers in the US are drawn from the bottom half of their college peers rather than the top ten percent as in Finland? Why is this case? What can be done? By the way, there is no standardized testing in Finland.
3. Do high standards lead to high performance and low standards to low performance?
NB: Is the obsession with graduation rates at the high school and college levels part of the problem? How about my lunatic idea that every child every class should be writing?
And that teachers should teach by example?
Healey, Campbell lean into MCAS battle, urging voters to keep graduation test
List of countries by tertiary education attainment — Wikipedia
Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?
10 reasons why Finland’s education system is the best in the world
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IP5ATbqCWPv0WKC4dCDgAiidbFVOaqR_
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to education or education policy. Or the coolest thought however half-baked you had.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to education or education policy that the rest of us may have missed.
Or just some random education-related fact that blew you away.
This is your chance to make someone’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something that is dear to your heart.
