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MCAS pass rate inches upIn the class of 2004, about 96 percent passAbout 96 percent of this year's high school seniors passed the MCAS test required for graduation, prompting state Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll yesterday to renew his call for making the exam tougher.
The state Department of Education reported that 58,756 of 61,338 seniors from the class of 2004 passed the MCAS exam, which they first took as sophomores. To pass, students must score a 220 on a 200- to 280-point scale on the English and math sections of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test. Driscoll, while heralding the students' success, suggested raising the bar "toward 230" points, a move that the state Board of Education would have to approve. Any change in the test standard, he said, would probably not happen for at least three years. "The issue is what's right for kids," Driscoll said. "The world these kids are graduating into, with the global economy and the lack of manufacturing jobs -- these kids almost as a matter of survival have to have skills that have to be at least 220 [level]. But it's going to have to be even more." School system superintendents balked at Driscoll's idea and questioned changing a graduation requirement that has been in effect only since 2003. "Why can't we just acknowledge that maybe public education is doing a good job, instead of continuing to say, `Well, the only reason we did this well is the test is too easy?' " asked Robert J. Calabrese, superintendent of schools in Billerica, where 100 percent of seniors passed. "Maybe we did this well because public education is doing the job that people don't want to give us enough credit for." The class of 2004 statewide slightly outperforms the class of 2003, with 96 percent passing, compared with 95 percent. Both totals reflect the number who passed by the end of senior year, when they would have had up to five opportunities to take the exam. The class of 2003 was the first that had to pass the MCAS test to earn a diploma. The class of 2005, currently juniors, is close to meeting the requirement: After three testing opportunities, 90 percent have passed. That number includes students who appealed their failing MCAS scores by showing through schoolwork and transcripts that they can do passing-level work. Yesterday's report also showed that blacks and Latinos, who on average have traditionally scored lower on MCAS, are catching up to their white and Asian peers after five tests. For example, 88 percent of black seniors and 85 percent of Latinos passed, compared with 98 percent of white students and 95 percent of Asian students. In the first round of testing more than two years ago, just 35 percent of Latinos and 39 percent of blacks passed, while 79 percent of whites and 75 percent of Asians did. Continued... |
