AS MASSACHUSETTS MARKS the 25th anniversary of a landmark Education Reform Act that propelled us to the head of the national class in public education, the Commonwealth’s latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are mildly encouraging. But they alone cannot erase what has been nearly a decade of troubling news on […]
PARCC
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Time for school accountability reset
NOW THAT THE question of raising the charter school cap in Massachusetts has been resolved, at least for now, I am hopeful that we can begin to examine and discuss other necessary changes to our educational system here in the Commonwealth. I say this with a certain amount of trepidation, as it seems that every time those discussions arise the […]
Posted inEducation
Pioneer pans PARCC, Common Core
A DAY AFTER a group of Massachusetts educators called on the state to adopt the new PARCC test, Boston-based Pioneer Institute issued a detailed report calling the Common Core-aligned PARCC test a flawed assessment and urging the state to reject its implementation and instead revise the state-based MCAS exam. Pioneer also rejected a third option […]
Posted inEducation
Chester pulls back from PARCC
MCAS or PARCC? “None of the above” now looks like the correct answer to that test question. What looked like an either-or choice between retaining the state’s MCAS exam or scrapping it in favor of the new Common Core-aligned PARCC test has taken an unexpected turn and landed on a compromise plan to develop a […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
PARCC vs. MCAS
CommonWealth‘s new fall issue set the table for the debate over whether to scrap the use of MCAS in Massachusetts schools in favor of the new Common Core-aligned PARCC test, and now the debate has fully engaged, with the Boston Globe devoting the entire two pages of its opinion section to the topic. The Globe editorial […]
Posted inEducation
MCAS vs. PARCC: Dead-heat in predicting college readiness
THE MOST CONCRETE evidence state officials will have available in deciding whether to switch to the new PARCC test or to stay with MCAS turns out to be little help in answering the question of which test is a better measure of readiness for college. The PARCC test was developed as a “next generation” assessment […]
Posted inEducation
State faces testing showdown
Photographs by Kathleen Dooher IN 2010, WHEN the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to adopt the Common Core State Standards, it marked a big moment for the effort to get states to sign on to a common set of academic benchmarks for public school students. The existing Massachusetts standards were widely regarded […]