The state will shorten standardized testing time for 3rd through 8th graders this year as a result of the pandemic but it will not cancel MCAS testing.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education issued the much-anticipated guidance Tuesday morning in a memo to superintendents. Secretary of Education James Peyser told GBH that the testing will not be used to evaluate underperforming schools but as a way to gauge learning loss during the pandemic.
“We should be able to get a much clearer sense for how much learning was lost during the last year,” Peyser said. “It will hopefully … give us an opportunity to not only identify where the gaps are, but hopefully direct us in terms of ensuring that students are getting extra help and that schools and districts are getting the resources they need for the students and children who need them most.”
The results of the spring’s high-stakes MCAS or Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam usually determines whether students’ graduate and if schools are up to par. Educators mounted a successful campaign to ditch the exam for grades 3-10 when schools shuttered last spring. But as this year has unfolded, and the pandemic has continued to keep many schools and districts closed to classroom learning, the fate of the test this year has been unknown until now.
Massachusetts Teachers Association President Merrie Najimy said the union has filed for a federal waiver that would once again cancel MCAS testing this year. And she called the changes a step in the right direction.
“It has reduced the amount of time that we have to teach to the test and then administer the test. And it has taken the high stakes punitive nature out of it,” she said. “Those are all really important. But still, we have to advocate for a federal waiver to allow the state to cancel MCAS for the year.”
Such decisions will be in the hands of the Biden administration, she said.
Jeffrey C. Riley, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, said in the memorandum to schools that the "extent of the learning loss in the Commonwealth is not yet known."
Riley cited a national study released last month by McKinsey & Co., which estimated that the shift to remote learning in spring 2020 set back all students’ academic progress by months. The magnitude of this the loss, he said, "demands that we accurately and fairly assess the level of student learning this school year."
The letter cited the following changes:
--Testing time for students grades 3-8 will be "significantly reduced" thorugh a "session sampling approach" requiring each student to take only a portion of the MCAS in each subject. The department did not immediately disclose the length of the testing time or how it would be administered if a district is operating remotely.
--Riley said he will not name or recommend to the state board of education any new underperforming or chronically underperforming districts or schools this year.
--The state will extend ACCESS testing for English learners until May 20.
-- School districts will be allowed to offer the biology MCAS to first-time 9th graders in June, instead of February.
Riley said additional information about the process will be released in coming weeks.
This article has been updated to include the comments from Secretary of Education James Peyser and Massachusetts Teachers Association President Merrie Najimy.
