A) Anti-union, B) Racist, C), Hostile to public
education
MCAS is all of the above
By Phebe
Eckfeldt
Boston
A movement of students, teachers, parents and educators is
steadily growing in Massachusetts to get rid of the MCAS test.
Students are boycotting it, teachers are refusing to administer
it and parents are helping to organize protests. All are
outraged by this racist, anti-poor, right-wing test.
What is the MCAS? The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of
1993 called for the creation of curriculum guidelines for what
should be taught at each grade level. It also called for a
system to assess students to see if the schools were achieving
these guidelines.
But instead of creating a system that would reflect the many
different ways students learn and show their talents and
knowledge in different forums, the Board of Education decided
to push one test--the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System. The MCAS was devised by associates of the Pioneer
Institute, a right-wing think tank hostile to public
education.
The test is currently being administered to students in the
third through eighth grades and the tenth grade. As of the year
2003, if tenth graders do not pass the MCAS they will not
graduate from high school.
Teachers are being forced to "teach to the test"--which
means covering large amounts of material, much of it
irrelevant, in a short period of time. Students are being
forced to memorize thousands of disconnected facts and
regurgitate them. Creativity, critical thinking, problem
solving, hands-on learning and artistic programs are all kicked
to the curb.
Students who are talented and knowledgeable in technology,
linguistics, music, athletics or vocational skills are
devalued, as they cannot be assessed by a standardized test.
Special-needs students, bilingual students and immigrant
students are severely discriminated against by MCAS
testing.
Teaching about 'dead white men'
Many teachers view the MCAS as a vehicle for the right wing
to lock its views into the public school curricula, especially
in the social sciences and history. Nancy Younossi, a teacher
in Boston's African American community of Roxbury for over 30
years and a member of the Boston Teacher's Union, which opposes
the MCAS, says, "The multicultural curriculum and programs that
we fought so hard for in our schools, that generate pride and
respect, that reflect the diverse backgrounds of our
students--African American, African, Latin, Asian, Caribbean
and Native--are being replaced with right-wing basics. They
want us to teach about dead white men.
"We teachers see the MCAS as a union-busting tactic," adds
Younossi. "In a classic divide and conquer tactic, we are being
threatened that if our classes fail, we could be fired, but if
our children do well we will receive more money."
The MCAS has already widened the existing class and race
inequalities in the school system. Private and parochial
schools, which have a lot more funding and material resources,
are exempt from the MCAS testing. But inner-city schools, where
there is a shortage of books, staff and materials, are
threatened with state funding cuts if their students don't pass
the MCAS.
The Student Coalition for Alternatives to the MCAS (SCAM)
which has been organizing rallies and boycotts against the
test, says in its literature, "Lower test scores will mean less
state funding, making the possibility of raising scores even
more distant. This vicious cycle could destroy public
schools."
The MCAS scores in 2000 showed that over 70 percent of
African American and Latino students failed the English or math
test. If this rate continues, over 75 percent of African
American and Latino students in Massachusetts will not receive
their high school diplomas.
A study by the Gaston Institute for Latino Community
Development at the University of Massachusetts-Boston predicts
that MCAS results could cause 29 percent of Latino students, 22
percent of African American students, 13 percent of Asian
students and 10 percent of white students to drop out of
school. If failing the MCAS in tenth grade means you won't
graduate, then why bother to continue? is the understandable
reasoning of many youth. African American and Latino students
are already over-represented among dropouts in the state,
accounting for only 17 percent of the students in grades 9-12
but 40 percent of the dropouts.
SCAM asks in an open letter to Massachusetts legislators:
"How can you think there is an equal playing field when
students in 130 Boston public schools went without textbooks
for most of the first semester of the year?" They ask why the
students are being punished for the fact that Massachusetts
schools rank 49th in the country in the money they invest in
their libraries. Some 37 percent of the state's elementary
schools have no libraries at all.
Under capitalism, especially in a time of economic crisis
when thousands are being laid off, what will become of this
large group of oppressed youth who are unable to get a high
school diploma? Either they end up as slave labor in the prison
industrial complex or they become a pool of unskilled,
part-time labor with no benefits that is used by the bosses to
drive down wages, bust unions and pit worker against
worker.
Corporations support MCAS
SCAM says: "We are told that the MCAS is important to
prepare students for jobs in the information economy. Don't you
really mean that failing the MCAS is important to guarantee a
steady flow of young people who will not compete for
high-paying jobs, but resign themselves to flipping
hamburgers?"
Corporations like Fidelity, EMC, Raytheon, Teradyne, State
Street Bank, Nstar, Analog Devices and Biogen have invested a
lot of money in advertising campaigns supporting the MCAS.
The MCAS is clearly part of a nationwide corporate attack on
public education and a push by conservatives to privatize the
public school system. This plan of attack was discussed in
October of 1999 at the Third Education Summit held at the
national headquarters of IBM.
Then-President Bill Clinton attended, along with 24
governors and 33 corporate heads. No teachers or principals
were invited. They all agreed that phasing out public schools
in poor neighborhoods would save them lots of money that is now
"wasted," since poor, working class youth don't need an
education to work at McDonalds.
But students all over Massachusetts want no part in this
racist, backward campaign. They are committed to throwing the
MCAS into the garbage can of history where it belongs. Student
organizer Samantha Johnson said, "We know that the MCAS is a
disaster in the making. We know that there is not equity in
schools because we go to those schools. We will not stop
fighting the 'MCAS regime' until there is equity for all
students."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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