Science MCAS added to list

WORCESTER -- Passing an MCAS science test became the state's newest high school graduation requirement yesterday, after heated debate over whether such exams will reshape the way biology, physics, and other sciences are taught.

The state Board of Education yesterday voted 6 to 1 for the new requirement, which will first affect the Class of 2010, this year's incoming eighth-graders. Students will have to pass one of four exams that match the science class they are taking in 10th grade: biology, chemistry, introductory physics, or technology and engineering. They will get their first run at the tests in 2008.

Yesterday was the first time the board has added a new graduation requirement since passing the math and reading portions of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams became mandatory to receive a diploma in 2003. By making science a graduation requirement, Massachusetts is joining 13 other states that require the tests or plan to do so soon.

The new tests are a mix of multiple-choice and open-ended questions and should draw from the knowledge that students gain from experiments, textbooks, and lectures. A biology question could ask students to figure out if a grid of cells belongs to an animal, a plant, or something else. A chemistry test may require them to predict what will happen when gas is heated during an experiment.

Opinion for the science requirement has been divided among lawmakers, scientists, teachers and college officials. Opponents fear that teachers will focus too much on test preparation and cut experiments that help students understand a complicated subject and turn some on to scientific careers. Others worry that too many students will fail.

But state board members, with the exception of the student member who voted against the idea, said the new requirement should get schools to spend more time on an often neglected subject.

James A. Peyser, chairman of the Board of Education, said a third of the Bay State's high schools require only two years of science to graduate. Only 10 percent of high schools require students to take science all four years.

''Making it a graduation requirement is really the only way we can ensure that students will get that experience," he said at the board's meeting, held at Clark University in Worcester. ''We need to move ahead now."

Emily Levine, the board's student member, opposed the requirement. ''There's no way I can feel comfortable adding a graduation requirement to such an experimental idea," she said.

Linda Grisham, director of the science and education program at Lesley University, said she's worried that Massachusetts is not ready for a science graduation requirement, since nearly a third of last year's eighth-graders flunked the science test. In Boston, 63 percent failed. The test is currently given to students in fifth and eighth grades.

She said the science test requires students to analyze more than the math and English tests.

''It's harder because the task is different," she said in an interview. ''You're not looking at facts. You're looking at how these facts are used to create an argument."

During yesterday's board meeting, teachers, professors and others debated for nearly two hours the merits of requiring students to pass a science test in order to graduate.

Melissa Kosinski-Collins, a biology instructor at MIT, said she feared that students would have less laboratory work. Experiments she did in high school, such as calculating the molecular weight of popcorn, inspired her to pursue a career in science, she said.

Sara DiGiorgio, a science teacher at Shrewsbury High School, said the requirement would help teachers focus more on science. She said that laboratories and guest speakers are fixtures at her school.

''Requiring standards has not and will not change the structure of our courses," she told the board.

Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll acknowledged concerns about the test. If test scores on pilot exams in 2006 and 2007 are low, he said he would ask the board to delay the exam. But he said school systems and others should not blame MCAS for troubles in schools.

''MCAS is simply a tool," he said. ''It isn't MCAS that's causing rote memorization."

The board will study the possibility of including labs and earth and space science on a future test, Driscoll said.

Governor Mitt Romney, who pushed the board to adopt the requirement at its January meeting, hailed the board's decision yesterday as ''a necessary step to keeping Massachusetts in the forefront of innovation and technology."

Today, Romney, lawmakers and others will meet in Boston with school and business leaders who will call on the state to invest $20 million to $50 million a year to train teachers in math and science. The group also will call for increasing the difficulty of science and math courses for students, as well as prospective teachers, and for higher pay for top-notch math and science teachers.

Making science a graduation requirement is part of the state's 1993 Education Reform Act, which led to the use of MCAS tests as a graduation requirement. Future MCAS tests will include history and foreign language.