School officials call for MCAS overhaul ; Districts await results from 2003 test
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Clive McFarlane
September 24, 2003
The state will today make public the 2003 MCAS results for individual schools and districts, an annual rite that has traditionally led to much hand-wringing by school administrators who feel that the results never give the true picture of what is going on in their schools.
While superintendents continue to raise concerns about the use of the exams, they are also quietly working on getting state lawmakers to adopt what they believe would be a fairer accountability system.
S. Paul Reville, executive director of MassINC's Center for Education and Research Policy and a former Massachusetts Board of Education member, is working with the superintendents and other educators around the state on what he calls a value-added assessment concept.
"Instead of assessing school performance on a set of snapshots, which is what the MCAS does, you look instead at the performance of the students you have over a period of time," Mr. Reville said of the value-added approach, which is gaining momentum around the country.
The system, according to Mr. Reville, would allow districts to chart a student's progress over a year or more, providing districts and teachers with a more effective assessment of their curriculum and instructional strategies.
Under the value-added system, all students would be tested to create baseline scores. Subsequent tests would show how well the school is doing in assisting students' educational growth, he said.
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In Tennessee, one of several states using a value-added system to assess both students and teachers, such accusations of political intrigue would be a lot more difficult to make, observers said.
The Tennessee system uses standardized tests given annually to students in Grades 3 through 8 that tell each teacher and each school how much their students have improved.
The school data are released to the public, while the teacher figures are shared only with school officials.
"We are big believers in value-added accountability," said Connie Smith, director of accountability for Tennessee.
"We believe value-added gives hope to school systems in showing progress, as far as educational growth and gain, inclusive of all students, not just subgroups."
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One major obstacle that value-added supporters face, however, is the reluctance of the federal government to use the assessment to satisfy its annual progress requirement of students and school districts.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, students and school districts must make yearly progress on their states' respective assessment exams, which in Massachusetts is the MCAS.
Massachusetts state officials said value-added assessment would be an ideal measure of schools' and students' performance, but noted that such a system would require huge investments of time and resources.
Mr. Reville said his group is hoping to come up with a proposal this fall that would give guidance to state and federal policy-makers in embracing a practical value-added assessment system.
"Our contention is that the demand for accountability is not going away," he said. "The initiative that we have undertaken is to say here is a fairer and better way to do it."
