The State Board of Education voted last fall to lower the score needed for graduation on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) to 220 – a level just above "failing" and one that former Board Chairman John Silber called a "mockery."

But this wasn’t low enough for the Massachusetts Teacher Association. They are pushing for legislation that will abolish any requirement for graduation.

"Since the MCAS was first proposed, critics have argued that it does not test what is being taught in the classroom," explains the Boston Globe.

That’s exactly the point – nothing is being taught in the classroom, and the MCAS exposes that fact.

Union president Stephen Gorrie says that "students in low-income communities do not have the resources they need to meet the high standards of the exam."

He is insulting the students in those communities and saying that they do not have the ability to perform adequately.

But the standards are not high, and the "resources" provided by the state have been doubled since the reform program began in 1993.

Since then, only three percent of the schools in the state have managed to get more than half of their students to meet the standard that the MCAS calls "proficient," according to D. A. Mittell of the Quincy Patriot-Ledger.

It is the schools that are failing.

The retreat from standards by the Board of Education and the teacher union show the complete inability of the public education system to reform itself.
 

RETURN TO FRONT PAGE