"Final exams in college don't take two weeks. SATs don't take that long. People who are applying to medical school go for one day," says Josiane Hudicourd-Barnes, a former bilingual teacher in Cambridge. "This test interrupts kids' lives for two weeks."
Hudicourd-Barnes says the test has already affected course offerings, meaning broad courses are offered in ninth and tenth grade to prepare students for the variety of material on the MCAS.
For example, she says, many ninth graders who used to take a course in biology and a United States or European history class now take a science survey and a course in world history.
In addition to covering too much material, King says the MCAS takes too long in general.
"It pushes aside a lot of culmination activities," she says.
At the Graham and Parks school, which her two children attend, students end the year by creating a portfolio--a "rigorous and quite prolonged" process that culminates, she says, with teachers asking students questions about their work in an elementary school version of a dissertation defense.
"It's not a fluffy, let-them-off-easy assessment," she says.
Read more in News
The Greening of the CrimsonRecommended Articles
-
MCAS Tests At Center of DebateSince the 1996 debut of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Test (MCAS), a student test used as a statistical marker of
-
Cambridge Schools Shine On Third-Grade Iowa TestsAfter two years of dismal student scores on statewide standardized tests, Cambridge school officials finally have something to cheer about.
-
Test Scores Should Not Deny DiplomasBarring a major transformation in the abilities of Massachusetts high school students over the next three years, more than a
-
LettersConsequences, Not Learning, Shape Test Scores To the editors: David M. DeBartolo's article about the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System ("Test
-
Putting the Test to the TestTomorrow Massachusetts high school sophomores will take a lengthy standardized test to determine how much they have learned. This test,
-
Editorial Notebook: The Perils of Teaching to the TestProtests against Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) have been sprouting out about the state. Most recently, 25 Arlington tenth-graders were
