CPS deplores denial of diplomas based on Science MCAS, June 3, 2010
The report that almost 3,000 Massachusetts high school seniors will be denied diplomas based on Science MCAS scores reveals once again the deep flaws of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (BESE) high-stakes testing policies. These are students who have completed four years of high school and satisfied the requirements of their school districts. Many of them overcame significant obstacles such as learning disabilities, economic hardship, or learning the English language in addition to their academic subjects.
These students will have difficulty continuing their education and are likely to be derailed from productive futures, at great cost to themselves and our social fabric. Failure to earn a high school diploma means these young people will earn far less, have less stable families, and are more likely to land in prison. We can ill afford a public policy that puts thousands of Massachusetts students on a path to failure because of a few points on a single standardized test.
Massachusetts high school students come from a wide variety of home and school backgrounds. The facilities and resources for authentic science education vary greatly from community to community across the Commonwealth. Many of our schools remain underfunded and ill-equipped for science and engineering education.
The Board of Education’s fundamental assumption, that a paper and pencil test covering an arbitrary list of topics truly captures student progress, is deeply flawed. It is particularly flawed in the area of science, in which an understanding and an interest in the scientific methodology is more important than memorizing any single body of information.
When the BESE instituted the science MCAS requirement, it was against the recommendations of leading Massachusetts scientists and science educators, as well as the authoritative National Academies of Science recommendations that standardized test results should not be used for high stakes decisions such as graduation.
The pressure on teachers to get their students past this barrier requires test prep instruction. This drives creative teaching and instruction out of the classroom and replaces it with drill-and-kill in which students focus on lists of questions drawn from previous tests. Prominent national figures such as Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, have sounded an alarm about the way high-stakes tests affect science education. Albert said science tests often focus on recall of vocabulary, stressing “excruciatingly boring material,” failing to judge the capacity of students to think, and ultimately discouraging many of them from choosing a career in the field. These consequences are independent of the quality of the standardized tests and independent of whether students are able to pass the tests.
As is typically the case with standardized tests, we are asked to accept the reliability of the tests without evidence. Was there any assessment by a committee independent of the test vendors and DOE of the quality of the tests? Do we know that they are aligned with the state standards? Who set the cutoff scores and what were their criteria? Should we continue to ignore the major critiques of the MCAS science exam, in particular its failure to encourage or support authentic inquiry-based learning and teaching.
We need to invest in more extensive science and technology education in our high schools: well-trained teachers, laboratory facilities, budgets for projects, field trips and science fairs. These would be a far better use of public resources than purchasing standardized tests and test services from private vendors.
Worth Reading
- Carnegie Report, Fall 2009: Restoring Science to Science Education – Bruce Alberts, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, and editor-in-chief of Science magazine, argues that “what is taught in schools today is a caricature of science. Young people need to be introduced to science’s full riches.” He says we have strayed from the mission of “empowering students to learn on their own” and recommends changes to return to it, including strengthening the human resources of states and school districts.
- Boston Globe: Science MCAS Stymies Many
- Response by CPS board member Jonathan King: Real Learning Lost in Chase for Test Scores
- Globe letter: Student Interest Gets Dampened
- Ed Week: Depth Matters in High School Science Studies
- Education Week: The High Stakes in Science Education by Jonathan King – May 7, 2007 [PDF Download]
Darwin Bicentennial Project
Conference Honoring Darwin | Nov. 20, 2009
On Friday, November 20, 2009, a conference for scientists and science teachers will be held in Cambridge, MA, at the Whitehead Institute, honoring the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.”
A morning session for the MIT community will feature lectures by some of the foremost experts in the evolution of the vertebrate eye and vision science (8:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.).
A special two-hour afternoon session beginning at 4:15 p.m. will be geared towards high school biology teachers, with the opportunity to hear from the same experts who lectured in the morning, including Darwin scholar John Durant, director of the MIT Museum; Dr. Graeme Wistow, section chief on Molecular Structure and Function at the National Eye Institute; Prof. Nancy Kanwisher, investigator at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research; and Prof. Constance Cepko, a Harvard Medical School geneticist.
After the afternoon talks, breakout sessions will allow teachers to explore specific topics in small groups with the scientists.
Sponsors: Citizens for Public Schools, MIT’s Science of the Eye program, Massachusetts Darwin Bicentennial Project, the Massachusetts Association of Biology Teachers, and Whitehead Institute’s Partnership for Science Education
Contact Lisa Guisbond at guisbond@mit.edu for more information or to register.
Also check Out: The Darwin Bicentennial Project
About the Project
2009 will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. With the accelerating accumulation of data on the nature of genomes, cells, organisms, and ecosystems, as well as increasing knowledge and appreciation of the importance of the Earth’s atmosphere and history, Darwin’s contributions are as important now as they were in 1859. Given the effort of anti-evolution groups over the past few years to interfere with the teaching of evolution in our schools, public recognition of Darwin’s contributions and the importance of evolution are particularly timely.
Encouraging Darwin Bicentennial events at Mass colleges and universities, with community outreach
Many colleges and universities will be planning events to celebrate the Darwin bicentennial. They may promote expanded classroom time on evolution to make sure there is sufficient material in their curricula on Darwin and evolution available to students. Some will organize seminars, lectures or study groups, or reading groups. The Mass Darwin 2009 Project will encourage them to add a public outreach component to their activities. This may involve:
- Including presentations and materials accessible to a broader audience than the internal scientific audience
- Holding public events in the late afternoon or evening, or on a Saturday, so that local high school teachers can attend
- Contacting biology and earth science teachers in surrounding communities. The Massachusetts Biology Teachers Association and Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers will assist in this aspect.
Reaching out to local school districts
As noted, biological scientists at colleges and universities in the Boston area and around the country will be organizing seminars and symposia recognizing the bicentennial. The Darwin Bicentennial Project is an effort to extend these activities to high schools and community colleges. Utilizing existing networks among science teachers, school committees, parent groups and professional scientific networks we are contacting individuals in local school districts and discussing 2009 opportunities.
We hope to encourage high schools to organize an occasional joint biology and earth science classes, or school-wide assembly, for talks on advances in our understanding of evolution, or dealing with the impact on biomedical and climate research. Also appropriate would be the organization of an evening or Saturday public forum in early 2009, open to members of the local community. In some cases the event will be around Feb 12, Darwin’s birthday, in other cases later in the winter or spring.
Linking scientists with educators and parents
The Project will offer a professional scientist to visit a classroom or assembly, or anchor a local forum, which would typically include local biology and/or earth science teachers, and a local school Principal, Superintendent, or School Committee member. Among the scientists who have volunteered to participate in Massachusetts are faculty from MIT, Harvard, Brandeis and Northeastern Universities, and industrial scientists from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, New England Biolabs, and Millennium Pharmaceuticals.
The project will also provide assistance such as helping with press releases for local newspaper and radio outlets, providing sample programs, themes and background materials through the www.darwinbicentennial.org website, and connecting organizers in local communities with each other.
In Massachusetts we are taking advantage of a network of contacts, which includes the Mass Association of Biology Teachers, Mass Science Teachers Assn, Mass Association of School Committees and Mass Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education. The kick-off event will be a daylong conference at the MIT Museum on Saturday Jan 24, 2009.
We have targeted an initial group of high schools that we hope will organize their forum in the week of Feb 12, Darwin’s birthday. We expect the local publicity to spur other high schools and community college to organize similar events in subsequent months.
Follow-up: Forming a continuing Darwin network linking scientists, teachers and parents
In the later part of 2009 the Project will organize regional Saturday half-day Evolution Today conferences, inviting all those who have organized local forums, to meet each other, share their experiences, and also deepen their knowledge through presentations of current research. This will also facilitate formation of relationships between research faculty, biotech scientists, and high school science teachers.
We expect the activities launched in 2009 to become regular annual events around Darwin’s birthday in subsequent years in local communities. By forging a network of teachers, scientists and educators, we expect to be able maintain a continuing public education effort in future years.
The forging of a Darwin network will be aided by a website www.darwinbicentennial.org which will have model activities; lists and links to communities and institutions whose plans are in place; explicit teaching syllabi and readings; model Darwin reading clubs, and chat rooms and blogs to allow discussion and exchange of experiences.
Some communities are likely to organize related activities such as showings of Inherit the Wind, book groups, or multiple scientific forums. All these will be posted and shared on the website.
