MCAS tests fall victim to coronavirus threat
Even if they’re taken, scores wouldn’t compare
The must-pass MCAS English Language Arts test for Massachusetts high school sophomores will have to be rescheduled due to school closings prompted by the coronavirus, but state education officials on Monday could not say when that exam or tests for grades 3 to 8 will be held.
“It’s too early to know for sure,” said Jacqueline Reis, a spokeswoman for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “Right now, our focus is on health and safety.”
Reis said it was not yet possible to say whether K-to-12 public and private schools would even reopen after April 6, the date Gov. Charlie Baker set.
School closures are even more drastic in Boston, where Mayor Martin Walsh on Friday said all campuses would be closed from Tuesday until April 27.
Both Walsh and the Massachusetts Teachers Associa ation have recommended canceling MCAS exams altogether this year, although what that would mean for graduation is unclear.
“Even if schools are called back into session in three weeks … that’s three weeks of lost learning time,” said MTA President Merrie Najimy.
If the exams are held this semester, Najimy said, it would “create a false set of scores, and that will be used against the students and their schools. Our kids are going to be living in a state of anxiety, and we have to put testing aside so that we’re free to do the work that’s necessary to make them feel safe.”
If the coronavirus pandemic improves, Boston Public Schools could reopen before April 27, BPS spokesman Xavier Andrews said. But in the meantime, the district is providing learning packets and Chromebooks so that students can study at home, Andrews said.
Last week, Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius signed an agreement with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to work together to “immediately improve” the district’s lowest-performing schools.
“The memorandum of understanding is still in place,” Andrews said, “but right now obviously there’s a lot more pressing matters.”
Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said his most pressing concern is for students who haven’t passed the MCAS yet and who are supposed to graduate in June.
But he said it’s much too early to say whether schools should reopen before then.
“We have to rely on medical authorities,” Scott said.
If schools do reopen and MCAS exams are held, “it would be difficult to compare those scores to other years’,” he said. “The validity of that would be an issue. To use them for any accountability purposes would not be probable.”