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The trouble with the MCAS tests is that
First of all, there are a great many bright kids who just don't test well, and there are also kids with various learning/developmental disabilities, both of who're put at a real disadvantage by being required to take the MCAS tests in order to graduate from high school.
Secondly, it's grossly unfair, imho, to penalize such kids and to deprive them of the opportunity to graduate from high school like most other kids, and, in the latter example I mentioned, it's often enough of a struggle for a kid to graduate from high school and no mean feat. Requiring that the MCAS tests be taken in order to graduate from high school effectively discredits kids in both of those situations, who've had to struggle just to stay afloat.
Come to think of it, it's a good thing that no MCAS tests were required for graduating from high school back when I was attending high school. Given my average grades and the fact that I didn't test well, I would've been totally screwed, like many, many other kids back then.
Gotdam commie pinko teachers!
This strange person’s fundamental argument is that people who don't like the MCAS are latte-sipping liberals who'd rather be turning kids into communists.
I think he could be the poster child for the failure of schools to teach reason; in the same post, he says:
Yeah, that was the same guy... in the same post. So which is it? Idle communist latte-klatsch or excellent teachers?
Maybe if Only in Boston took a reason pill, he'd awaken to the simple concept that these excellent teachers don't like the MCAS because it's a waste of time. That "striving for excellence?" That "succeeding like crazy?" That "aim high but reach higher?" That would all be put on hold while they treat the students like spreadsheets instead of children.
The ‘measure them more’ theory of education has always struck me as bizarre. So the factory model of education isn't working well. What shall we do? I know! How about a 21st century factory model of education! Keep the same warehouse-size schools, keep the same huge classes and lowest common denominator curriculum, but measure it more, and keep the results in spreadsheets rather than file cabinets! Instead of As and Bs, we’ll use a whole bunch of numbers!
Why do we imagine that is really going to make a positive difference?
The notable thing in this post is the peculiar way Only in Boston keeps going off on the dangers of letting those teachers alone with kids; why, they’ll spout "self-indulgent, happy-pill pep-talks" and "regal[e] students with tall tales and guilt trips about American history and culture, and how to foment a neat little armed revolution..." God forbid they'll learn that America exists because of a "neat little armed revolution." I'm pretty glad about it, but apparently some folks would like to turn the clock back a few centuries. You can't even call this guy a Republican; he's a Tory.
It always amuses me how people who are all No Child Left Behind and MCAS like to put on airs of being businessmen or scientists. But businessmen would know to classify testing as "overhead," as far as actual education is concerned, and try to reduce it. Scientists would be conscious of the observer's effect on the observed, and only do it when the meaning of the results is greater than the disruption caused by the test. You can't have school testing that doesn't change the teaching. More testing = less teaching. If you make it frequent, high-stakes testing, it ends up perverting teaching to the point where the school's whole mission becomes manipulating the numbers. No Child Left Behind is the Enronomics of education.