Public Opinion About Education
November 23, 2014Educating Your Future Workforce: A Call to Action for Employers
January 22, 2015Stay the course on standards and assessments. That’s MBAE’s position on the Common Core standards and the transition away from MCAS. And now it’s advice to Governor-elect Baker coming from the Boston Globe.
In Friday’s editorial, Noah Guiney of the Globe editorial board advises Baker to “stay the course on the Core” and let school districts have time to adapt to the Common Core standards and the transition away from MCAS. Guiney accurately points out that implementation is the key issue here, not the standards themselves, which surveys show get more support from teachers the more time they have to work with them.
We hope Governor-elect Baker is receiving the same counsel from his advisors and transition team. The standards are in their fourth year of implementation, and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is taking a slower and more deliberate approach to PARCC than other states. Students taking PARCC this year will have their tests scored but those scores will not affect school ratings, as part of DESE’s “held harmless” policy. It’s a rational way to address change.
After 17 years of the same test, a switch to a computerized 21st century exam is a big move, but one worth making. As MBAE Executive Director Linda Noonan recently wrote in a letter to the Globe, it is time to modernize assessment, not scrap it altogether. Using an outdated method of measurement like MCAS serves neither the teachers, nor the parents, nor the students. If we want to stay on top in education, we must have an honest measure of skills students need to be successful in the future.