Citizens for Public Schools

The uproar over a state official’s remark last week about Lawrence and Holyoke shines a light on the systemic racism that underlies state education policy and causes untold harm to the children of Massachusetts urban centers.

That assumption is that city schools would be better off with less democracy, with state appointees determining more of what happens in the classroom.

Citizens for Public Schools maintains the opposite: Children learn better when their schools respond to their communities.

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education took an important step at its April 20 meeting: It cancelled the state’s “accountability” system for the current year due to the pandemic. State officials will pause their use of the algorithm dominated by MCAS scores to rate schools and districts.

In the discussion leading to the unanimous vote, board member Michael Moriarty said it was unfortunate that the pandemic was stalling state action in Holyoke and Lawrence schools.   → Read More

January 2021

Jeffrey C. Riley, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education, has proposed several changes to the MCAS this year, in light of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the changes and what they mean for Massachusetts students and educators. 

• In a January 5 memo, Commissioner Riley said he will recommend to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education that this year’s seniors be allowed to earn their high school diplomas by passing their required courses and not have to pass the MCAS. 
  
• He said, “The [Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE)] will significantly reduce testing time for students in grades 3-8 through a session sampling approach, in which each student will take only a portion of each MCAS assessment in each subject.”
  
• The Commissioner will not “recommend to the Board any new underperforming or chronically underperforming districts or schools in the upcoming school year.” Those are labels the state assigns based on MCAS scores.