Statewide exams could be revamped to include lab, oral component

Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester students should have an easy time acing these tests.

Maybe we should teach them to think instead of teaching them to take one test.

Stop the madness. This type of stuff is what is the downfall of the American Public Education system. Because these test have become so high stakes, (superintendents salaries reflect how well their district scores), most school systems spend more time teach the test instead of doing real teaching and learning. Teach kids how to think critically and how to learn. They will pass the test easily. Stop sending them home with assignments that are clearly geared toward teaching them how to pass MCAS. My son's 7th grade curriculum includes a class call "MCAS Strategies". This is to far.

That's nice, so where is the state and the local communities going to get the money to properly equip schools with facilities and competent science teachers? Hmmmm?

Sounds like the testing companies, the ones that put the spurious and intentionally bogus reports out to parents every year, are just fattening their coffers again.

"Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester students should have an easy time acing these tests."

What does that mean?

And good luck "extending" the school day. Teachers are pissed off enough teaching to a test. Why not just close the schools. You are driving the teachers away in droves.

Typical. Make the students pass a test or make the school worse by having it state run. Then cry and moan when the students that are taught that the answer is almost never D, or how to eliminate possible wrong answers, go on to embarrass the state in the college arena.

No child left behind sure is a smashing hit George!

/sarcasm

All the people who complain about how hard the MCAS tests are, forget that they are actually a MINIMUM standard. Our students should be prepared for a higher standard not just the lowest common denominator.

Ridiculous. Teach the kids to freakin learn. Stop teaching them how to take more and more tests.

the real reason for the extended school day program is the expectation that you will have to work that much more for the same or less wages, we'll take 'care' or your kids so you can do that. You know who wins. It worked with women in the workforce, now 2 salaries to get by what took 1 I think it was called feminism , or at least it was used to beat the drum. soon 2 salaries at 12-14 hr days. The truth is the stimulus package, and the low interest rates, and the car manufactures bailout aren't free..did you think they were? Prices are going to take off in the next 6 months for basic goods. And the family will suffer. Family is becoming
a 4 letter word now.

I thought MCAS was supposed to test schools and teachers, when did it become the students issue? I am fortunate enought to send my kid to a private school but most people cannot do that and have to suffer with this absurdity. Valuable programs are dropped all in favor of teaching to the test

The rest of the developed world has double the course work required for a high school diploma. Take a look at their cirriculum, what we considered as 12th grade is equivalent to their 10th grade course work. In another words, it took their kids 10 yrs to finish what ours took 12.

Aren't oral presentations, labs, and group work already part of the method teachers use to teach, as well as measure a students ability? The MCAS test should be done away with. I look back at high school, in a small rural town, and essentially remember it as holding pen.

Worst idea ever. More of an incentive for the lazy teacher to teach only to the test, and ignore the reality of educating children. Why do you think they do so poorly now, because teachers focus exclusively on the test, not the knowledge.

As long as the MCAS exist as a graduation requirement, those of means (such as my family) will ensure our young ones are educated in private institutions, insulated from the madness of inadequate and ineffective public education

This is ridiculous. Massachusetts is the only state that requires such ambitious testing to be completed before a child can "graduate" tenth grade and move on. This exam is completely unnecessary because all of the information that the teachers spend the full year drilling into their students heads for this exam is quickly forgotten as soon as they learn they have passed. Unfortunately, Massachusetts refuses to develop a more proactive solution instead of mass-testing students and making them feel inferior and worthless if they can't pass an exam that no other state requires their students to take.

What next.....this has to stop. As already mentioned the MCAS was suppose to be about the schools and teachers. This whole thing has gone to the dogs. Teachers can't teach, students are extremely stressed. Has anybody taken a look at the number of students who are suffering from anxiety and are on medication now. I THINK IT IS ABOUT TIME SOMEONE TAKES A LOOK AT THAT. The students are being pushed beyond there means. Yes, some can handle it but oh so many can not.
What should be taught is basics of living and performing in the real world. Teach students how to plan a budget, balance a check book, take care of a car. Take away some of the fast pace and that everything supposedly is instantaneous. Realism is more what should be stressed. Strong english, basic math for everyday. Science.....why? Teamwork is already taught as well as oral presentations. Which for the poor shy child is and can be traumatic. One must remember it is a cruel world and some children are not KIND

I graduated from one of the Boston Public Schools one year ago and I can tell you from my first hand experience-- teachers focus on preparing for MCAS questions, ignoring everything else. I am lucky that I came to the U.S from Europe knowing the material; passing MCAS with Advanced scores is a joke...I feel sorry for those kids who need to go through the whole BPS system.

i think this is a good idea to help kids the the education thy need because most students in alot of schools aer failing the mcas and it is affecting them alot so this i think is a good help out to the kids and their educaton

Technology/Engineering is 25% of the Massachusetts Technology Engineering Curriculum Framework and is tested in grades 5, 8 and is an option for the high school science and technology graduation requirement.
In these classes students work in teams to solve problems in the human made world (technology). They research, design and build prototypes using the engineering design process. When they are are finished they write reports and give oral presentations on the test results and potential changes to make improvements on their prototypes. At this time most Superintendents do not recognize this subject as a core academic as they do science classes. When administrators move this area next to science and out of the enrichment or elective areas, students will direct more time and energy into these classes. When this happens students will be better prepared in the areas mentioned in by Paul for college and the workforce. The 1993 Education Reform Act in it's language puts technology/engineering along side science as a core academic subject. Please visit masstec.org for more information about this subject.

It would be phenomenal if those of you who rail against public schools would fess up as to where you were educated because your grammar and spelling are an embarrassment. If you don't know the difference between there-their-they're, you should probably not comment publicly about what students should be learning.

Massachusetts is NOT the only state that requires tests to graduate from high school -- NCLB requires that of ALL states. And completing experiments and presenting orally are, in fact, skills and not something to be learned rote.

As a former secondary school teacher who just retired, these plans are absurd. Let's consider that the people who want to make these changes are for the most part never in a classroom and if they have, it hasn't been for years. I am talking about teaching not observing.
Now let's consider the state of the economy and that is fair since these proposed changes are being spoken about in an economy that is collapsing. You want to spend more money on tests? You want to extend the school day even more? You want to pay more to hire additional teachers to tutor? Let's get real. Who is going to pay for all this? Detroit?
Do you want tests or learning? Apparently more testing> CRAZY!!!

The MCAS put smart people at a disadvantage in that they are so simplistic that they bore the hell out of anyone with a brain, who tries to look for an answer not in the (grade two level testing tenth graders) text, because they can't believe the rediculousness of the question..."where is the lighthouse located?" Well let me see...it says right there in the first sentence..."the lighthouse is located in Maine". I think it is designed for ESL kids or something. Because I could definitely follow the symbols saying the same thing in Chinese and get the question right just by seeing where they overlap in the question and the reading. And also, I don't know about the rest of you, but in fourth grade, my teacher helped me cheat on my MCAS by correcting it for me before submitting it. Is this really what must become of city schools? So much pressure for kids to achieve on a test that really tests nothing that they have to cheat. Fortunately I developed morals at some point after then, but having a teacher help you cheat is not a good introduction to standardized testing.

IDIOCY!

This is total nonsense. There are plenty of communities where the students are graduating with the skills they need. They were there before MCAS. The need is not for more testing, it's for better teaching and better schools in SOME communities, not all.
Add more tests just adds to the unfunded mandate from the state. It stifles good teachers who are forced to teach to the test. It wastes valuable time in school. with test preparation and execution. It stifles quality students who no longer get the advanced work they can do because teachers have to cater to the test.
It's time to admit that it's certain communities and school systems and stop making every participate in the same unwarranted programs.

The group projects and science lab experiments are a normal part of the regular curriculum that had to be shortchanged so schools could concentrate on preparing for testing. Now that someone realized what is missing, the missing parts have to be "standardized" so that everybody can take the same test. I can imagine the giant boxes of identical testing supplies, but how will they ever standardize the groups? Will they have to be equal numbers of each sex? tall kids and short kids? a certain ratio of smart kids and not-so-smart kids? one of every race we can define? include a lazy bum who does nothing and someone who trys to control the whole project and one (female?) who actually does everything?
Then, what happens when the workplace changes completely as it did for so many who never had a computer in their classroom?
Why not go back to teaching kids to think and learn , i.e. giving them an "education"?

How about we go back to teaching kids to think and learn?

Honestly, I took these exams from fourth grade through high school. The MCAS tests are ridiculously easy to pass. The students who do not pass are not getting into college anyway. If the exams are part of a graduation requirement, then they should be more rigorous. Think of it as a college comprehensive exam, but for high school. There are some skills that are important to have no matter what you end up doing in life.

Brad,

We now have a tech course taught to our 8th graders. They get 22 classes of instruction (probably 50 minutes each, not sure) so they can get all the kids in, hopefully, before the test in the spring. Now, here's the funny part. So the class just ended for the kids that just had it and another group of kids are about to start. I'm wondering how the kids that just finished are supposed to remember everything they've learned for the test in anther 5/6 months.

"Teach kids how to think critically and how to learn. They will pass the test easily."

...and then some people will complain that teaching kids how to think critically and how to learn is teaching to the test...

"All the people who complain about how hard the MCAS tests are, forget that they are actually a MINIMUM standard. Our students should be prepared for a higher standard not just the lowest common denominator."

Indeed. These tests measure reading skills, math skills, and now science skills. If teaching reading, math, and science is teaching to the test, then teaching to the test is perfectly fine.

"It worked with women in the workforce, now 2 salaries to get by what took 1 I think it was called feminism , or at least it was used to beat the drum."

It's also called survival. Those of us who can't be sexy enough to get husbands and live off their incomes need the chance to earn incomes of our own. What do you want us to do instead? Depend on our fathers (and then on any younger men left in our families once our fathers die)? Settle for arranged marriages with men who don't feel attracted to us and grudgingly marry and support us in order to make their families stop nagging them? Stay on welfare our whole lives? Beg on the streets until we die?

You're not proposing to marry me, you have every right to not propose to marry me (no means no, after all), but if you refuse to marry me when I can't marry anyone else either then don't complain about me working at some other job instead of housewife.