MCAS Good, Bad, Or Other? DESE Seeks Opinions In New Survey

MASSACHUSETTS — The MCAS system is 30-years-old this year. Is it time to change the state's Millennial-age school assessment system?

If you're a parent, teacher or other interested party, you can help decide. The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) recently opened a survey "to help inform the future direction of the testing program."

The survey comes as some top state lawmakers are taking a fresh look at alternatives to MCAS, long reviled by many teachers and students. State Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, told WCVB's "On the Record" earlier this month it's time for the state to start looking at alternative ways of assessing student aptitude.

Gov. Maura Healey has also supported the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment, a group of eight school districts and their teacher unions — Milford, Attleboro, Wareham, Revere, Boston, Lowell, Winchester and Somerville — that that want to create "a more dynamic picture of student learning and school quality than a single standardized test."

MCAS was created as part of the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act, which also created a new school funding formula and allowed charter schools to open in the state. The first MCAS tests did weren't given to students until 1998, and they have been a graduation requirement since 2003.

Like the MCAS itself, there's a time limit: the survey closes at 5 p.m. on Friday.