Testimony of Lisa Guisbond, Regarding H. 4163 and H. 4164
Testimony of Lisa Guisbond
Policy Analyst, FairTest
Regarding H. 4163 and H. 4164
Joint Committee on Education Hearing
September 17, 2009
I’m Lisa Guisbond, a policy analyst for FairTest, which works to ensure that school assessments are fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial. I am a Brookline public school parent and I had the honor to serve on Gov. Patrick’s Readiness Subcommittee on MCAS. As an engaged stakeholder in the Readiness process, I thank you for the opportunity to share my concerns about these two bills.
I agree with Governor Patrick that it is time for the next chapter of Education Reform. Unfortunately, these two bills do not tackle educational assessment issues that have enormous influence on our schools. Whatever the governance model, whether charter, Readiness, pilot or regular public school, we need an assessment overhaul to obtain real learning improvements.
My colleagues on the Readiness Project MCAS subcommittee and I reviewed research on assessment, MCAS, and high-stakes testing systems. Our subcommittee report noted an emerging consensus that the high-stakes MCAS has had the “unintended outcome of narrowing curriculum, modifying instructional approaches without consideration of what is developmentally appropriate, and has resulted in notable decreases in student engagement.” We said that such negative consequences are magnified in poorer districts, the very schools, districts, and students that education reform was designed to help. Moreover, “while overall exam scores are going up, the achievement gaps remain and drop out rates are increasing … among vulnerable populations.”
To create an effective blueprint for Education Reform’s next chapter, we must absorb the lessons of the last chapter. The emphasis on preparing students for MCAS testing has not helped overcome achievement gaps or prepare students for college work. New science MCAS results, for example, reflect large disparities in access to excellent science instruction. Just 13% or fewer African American, Hispanic and low-income students scored Proficient or higher on the grade 8 test, compared to 47% of whites.
But the answer is not to focus on test preparation to boost science scores. As Boston science teacher Garret Virchick wrote to the Boston Globe*, “A strong grounding in science means having students do real science in school, not cover everything from anatomy to zoology in the hopes of making sure students ‘know’ enough to pass the test. Doing science is messy, takes time, and should be filled with lots of room for students to make mistakes … This is happening less and less as pressure to do well on these tests has become the mantra in public education.”
There are some positive and some negative aspects of the Readiness bills. However, unless we move our schools from a culture of test compliance to one of deep learning, strong student engagement, and steady improvement, we will fail in our long-term objectives. To do this, we need a true Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, as proposed in H. 3660.
*Virchick, Boston Globe, Sept. 10, 2009