Did You Know?
Scituate’s English Language Arts (ELA) books and resources are older than the majority of the students using them (12+ years old). They are no longer available in print and contain out-dated terminology. In fact, the ELA materials used to open the Jenkins Elementary school 4 years ago were retrieved from the Marshfield Public School’s dumpster, as they were throwing the old textbooks away.
Did You Know?
Passing 10th grade MCAS is required in order to receive a state-sanctioned diploma. Students who fail can take the test several times before graduation. The Massachusetts Board of Education voted to change the minimum MCAS score requirements from 220 to 240 starting with the class of 2010.
Did You Know?
Due to budget cuts, there is no longer a technical education program (shop program) at Gates Middle School. There are a number of technical education/engineering questions on the MCAS, with no curriculum to teach the students what they need to know.
Did You Know? Scituate MCAS results, as well as all MCAS results for the State of Massachusetts are available on the MA Department of Education website (http://www.doe.mass.edu/).
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2 comments:
Folks,
I don't know what can be done, but we are killing future generations with all this focus on the MCAS. We have eliminated all creativity from the curriculum. Teachers have become overly focussed on student scores and lost sight of developing outside interests and nontraditional talents. We are obliterating the future Edisons, Gates and Bransons of the world. I wish we were brave enough to step away from MCAS and let the chips fall where they may. I know we have a more than competent staff that will not let a child fall through the cracks. We need now more than ever to sponsor individualism and genius, not conforming to a meaningless test that measures one moment in the life of a child.
The MCAS is a political bandwagon. Since no other state has exactly the same test are the results relevant? Perhaps if one never intends to leave Massachusetts....
This comment is posted from the school administration - Dr. Jim Kelleher and Mark Mason.
The MCAS-testing comment raises a very important point for discussion. To begin with a bit of history, the early 1990s saw a 'standards movement' across the United States. All fifty states, some in response to lawsuits, adopted reform legislation that included academic standards and state-mandated testing. In Massachusetts, this consisted of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) of 1993. The act introduced common standards for academic disciplines, along with testing through the MCAS.
The federal government then sought to impose more uniform standards across the country by reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2001, under the label 'No Child Left Behind' (NCLB). NCLB ratcheted up the amount of testing considerably, adding many more layers of testing than what the MERA originally prescribed, and also added the goal of all students reaching proficiency by 2014.
As we enter the second decade of the standards movement, the academic standards are more refined and of higher caliber in Mass. and elsewhere, and the tests themselves have been refined also. The amount of testing, however, is a bit of a concern to many parents and educators. The writer of this comment is correct to note that in a place such as the Scituate Public Schools, we have historically done a very good job in meeting the needs of our students. It is important to note that this has not always been the case in many urban and poor areas across the state, and both MERA and NCLB have helped to impose standards and raise achievement levels for all.
As the 'standards movement' gets older, we can only hope that politicians will seek to have more of a balance between good teaching and learning and testing. A final important point is that education in Scituate is not geared 100% around MCAS testing. While MCAS does play an important role in our curriculum and assessment plans, each school and every teacher works hard to bring elements into the curriculum that let students develop a sense
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