Mixed MCAS Results
by Matt Margolis, September 22nd, 2006 at 05:19am
Today, it was reported that “English and math MCAS scores in elementary and most middle school grades were flat or declined for the second consecutive year.” Tenth-graders, however, showed improvement, and minority students are starting to close the gap on scores.
Naturally those who oppose the MCAS tests will argue that the test is no good, and blame the problem on lack of money going into education. Of course, despite the regular increases in education funding in this state (and the country for that matter) students still lag behind. Money is not the problem… we need to make teachers more accountable… unfortunately, Democrats and teachers unions oppose such commonsense education proposals like merit pay for teachers and tenure reform.
Entry Filed under: Education
2 Comments
1. bitacle.org | September 22nd, 2006 at 11:12 pm
Bitacle Blog Search Archive - Mixed MCAS Results
[...] Today, it was reported that “English and math MCAS scores in elementary and most middle school grades were flat or declined for the second consecutive year. [...]
2. Michaeljc4 | September 23rd, 2006 at 5:59 am
I’m curious about how teachers should be held more accountable. In order to become a teacher with professional status, you have to earn two college degrees at your own expense, past a general communications and literacy test, and tests in each subject that you are certified to teach in. To remain certified, you need to turn in hundreds of PDPs (professional development points) to the DOE to show that you have kept up with your training. With the advent of the MCAS test, as well as the NCLB laws, each school is held to account for the continuing improvement of each student based on a wide variety of demographic characteristics. Failure to improve in any one of these subgroups results in an increasingly punative series of outside interventions for the school.
What would you suggest in addition to this level of accountability? Merit pay, at the level of each classroom teacher, is unworkable given the structure of the MCAS test(although merit funding for an entire school based on improvements in test scores is an intriguing idea). What kind of tenure reform do you propose?