21st-century skeptics

On April 17, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education awarded a $146 million, five-year contract extension to the New Hampshire-based designer of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test, which measures student knowledge of the subject content in the state's highly regarded curriculum. The new contract mainly covers test materials, administration, scoring, and reporting of results.

But a portion also calls for the integration of so-called "21st-century skills" into the next phase of MCAS. That change has unnerved the nonprofit Pioneer Institute and some other education reformers, who fear that bureaucrats are quietly using an innovative-sounding buzzword to chip away at a much-needed test. The change should also worry parents who want to maintain a rigorous education for their children.

Massachusetts stands apart in public education precisely because it created high academic standards, developed an objective measure of student performance and progress through the MCAS test, and required a passing grade in order to graduate. Students, as a result, rank at or near the top of standardized testing not just nationally but on tough international achievement tests in math and science. Any retreat from this strategy would be a profound mistake.

State education officials have done a generally poor job of defining 21st-century skills - which can include interdisciplinary thinking and media literacy - or explaining how to test them statewide. They are doing better of late. Kit Viator, director of student assessment at the Education Department, argues reasonably that student performance on science projects, debating technique, and long-term research projects correlate with future success in college and the workplace.

Still, it is unclear why MCAS test makers and graders would concern themselves with work that is more appropriately reflected in a student's report card and cannot be measured by a quick, diagnostic test. MCAS testers should concentrate on accurately measuring math ability and reading comprehension, which surely correlate with a student's success in the workplace.

Many parents might appreciate knowing from classroom teachers how their children perform on group projects, adapt to new technologies, and embrace other 21st-century skills. But such subjective analysis should not be used to fiddle with scores on the objective MCAS exam. In any century, that would amount to educational fraud.