The Impact of the MCAS: Teachers Talk about High-Stakes Testing

Florida, and Chicago, required students to score at designated levels on tests for promotion or graduation (Wolk). Despite their widespread use, however, intense controversy exists about the impact of these tests on teaching and learning. Proponents like Diane Ravitch claim that high-stakes tests are the best way to establish and maintain high standards, motivate students and teachers, and ultimately achieve educational equity. Critics like Susan Ohanian contend that such tests are an oversimplified and punitive response to larger social problems, a response that will reinforce, rather than ameliorate, inequities in education. Educational measurement scholars assert that the empirical evidence demonstrating either a positive or negative relationship between high-stakes testing and improved teaching and learning is insufficient and equivocal (Mehrens). According to both Bushweller and Olson, some states, such as Alabama, Arizona, Maryland, and Wisconsin, have reconsidered their highstakes sanctions because students are not achieving high scores on state tests, and many are at risk of dropping out or being held back. Meanwhile, policy makers, educators, and other stakeholders find themselves in the difficult position of making educational decisions and taking daily action informed by a great deal of contentious rhetoric but little useful information about the real-life consequences of existing high-stakes testing policies for students, teachers, and schools. As English teacher educators and literacy researchers, we believe there is an urgent need to find out as much as we can right now about how the highstakes testing movement is affecting what and how English teachers are teaching and what and how their students are learning. To do this, we asked some local experts-Massachusetts English teachers-to talk with us about the impact of the new Massachusetts high-stakes test, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), and about how they are dealing with this test in their classrooms and schools. The MCAS is a series of performance-based standardized tests in a variety of subjects, including English, in which students in grades four, eight, and ten are expected to answer multiple choice and open-response questions and write a five paragraph essay. Although student performance on this test is often described in terms of mastering or lacking basic skills, MCAS is not a minimum-competency exam, and the tenth grade MCAS is, in fact, more difficult than many other existing tenth grade highstakes tests, as McDermott points out.