The Shifting Sands of MCAS

Last week the results of the annual Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests were released and Island high school students continued to dominate student testing process by which schools statewide, for better or worse, are ultimately judged.

Island schools rank solidly among the state's nearly 360 school systems. At the same time, several Island primary and intermediate schools may be assigning extra homework in math, science and English language arts as a result of a slide in the scores that third through eighth-grade students received.

“Martha's Vineyard Public Schools do very well on MCAS,” Superintendent Jim Weiss told Patch this week. “We're not always highest, but we are always in the top 10-15 percent of Commonwealth school systems.”

Noting that Island schools met overall proficiency standards, Mr. Weiss said several schools missed the mark in one or another subject. He referred to state statistics showing that 82 percent of state schools did not meet ever-increasing state standards in one or more subject and 92 percent of state school districts failed to meet new standards, a double-digit increase compared with two years ago. “It's getting more difficult to reach the standards,” he said.

While MCAS testing of math, English language and science skills has been in place for 18 years, a 2003 federal program, called No Child Left Behind, recently revved up by the Obama administration, raises minimum standards annually until 2014.

The Massachusetts 2011 bar in math was raised nearly 10 percent from the prior year and English proficiency targets were nearly six percent higher, Patch's analysis of standards shows. “We showed improvement in every area, but less than the new standards. I'm disappointed we didn't do better but I'm not surprised. This is the first year we've not met all the standards,” Weiss said.

MCAS displays scores in four groups: Advanced, Proficient, Needs Improvement and Warning/Failure. At the high school level, 97-98 percent of students achieved at the two highest levels, but at some schools, notably Oak Bluffs and several grades in Edgartown, Tisbury and the Charter schools, the failure/warning rate in some subjects, in some grades was at the 10 percent or higher level.

“We are evaluating the testing now. That'll take two weeks, then we review procedures at every school and in every classroom,” Weiss said. Remedial action could take the form of increasing the proficiency of students in measurement-oriented work such as class work and test taking, he said.

Teachers and administrators Island wide – and nationwide - have worried for years that heavy reliance on MCAS-type testing leads to “teaching to the test” at the expense of education.

“That's not going to happen here,” said Weiss. “The MCAS is one test. We a use AP (Advanced Placement) and SAT (college-bound Student Aptitude Test) scores, as well as our own standards and measures.”

And according to Weiss, “We are lucky here. The school system has the resources it needs to be successful and we are not labeled as a failing school as so many systems are, unfairly, in my opinion. And we have a relatively stable student population. There is not a lot of transiency on the Island. By the time our kids get into high school, they are in pretty good shape.”