Lessons from another state's high-stakes test

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Five years ago, Massachusetts stood where Washington does now.

It had a 10th-grade state test, soon to be a graduation requirement, that, just like the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), fewer than half of the sophomores passed each year.

School leaders hoped that scores would shoot up once the test counted. Critics predicted disaster. Parents protested, some students boycotted — and others sued.

Massachusetts Commissioner of Education David Driscoll said everyone he talked to seemed to have a child, friend or neighbor they feared wouldn't pass.

Then the results came in. And they were so good that states like Washington, which requires its own high-stakes test for graduation beginning in 2008, now look to Massachusetts for reassurance.

In 2001, the first year that Massachusetts sophomores took the test for keeps, the passage rate shot from 49 percent to 68 percent. By the time that class graduated, only 5 percent of seniors didn't get a diploma because they didn't pass the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System).

"People underestimated the effort of teachers and students once they focused on a clear set of goals," said Paul Reville, former member of the Massachusetts Board of Education.

A big increase in school funding helped, too. And as the passage rate rose, protest wilted and schools and students worked to ensure that students passed the MCAS. Whether Massachusetts educators like the graduation requirement or not — and many still do not — they didn't want students to fail.

Critics say Massachusetts isn't the miracle some claim it to be. The high MCAS passage rates, they say, don't count students who drop out. Massachusetts, like most states, has a significant dropout rate that rose slightly last year. And the achievement gap among ethnic minorities is widening, despite rising MCAS scores. But the discussion in Massachusetts now often centers more on the federal No Child Left Behind Act than on the MCAS.

"It's funny — I tend to forget that we're even giving a high-stakes test," says Nancy Walser, a member of the school board in Cambridge, one center of protest five years ago. "The conversation evolved here to things beyond that."

Massachusetts is one of 19 states with a graduation exam. Another seven (including Washington) will put theirs into effect over the next few years. The tests vary in difficulty, structure and content. But few states have had scores climb as much as Massachusetts. That's one reason why Terry Bergeson, Washington's superintendent of public instruction, likes to show graphs of Massachusetts' passage rate.

Last year, 81 percent of sophomores passed it on their first try.

Visits to several Massachusetts schools, as well as interviews with teachers, students and principals, make it clear that scores rose for a number of reasons — not the least of which was a strong spike in student motivation.

"There's something to be said for the fear-of-God theory, and they put the fear of God into the kids," said Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts association of school boards, known as school "committees."

The passing bar also was set at what Driscoll called a "Goldilocks" level — not too high, and not too low. Even though Massachusetts' test is often considered one of the nation's most difficult exit exams (along with the WASL), Driscoll considers it a measure of basic skills, not whether students are ready for college.

"It's just a floor," he says.

Schools revamped their lessons to make sure teachers covered skills students needed to pass the test, and they set up special MCAS classes before school, after school and during school — which included test-taking strategies that critics still consider a waste of time.

Funding was key. The state legislature poured lots of new money into its schools over a 10-year period, starting when Massachusetts passed its education-reform bill in 1993, the same year Washington did. And the legislature later approved $50 million a year for several years specifically to help students who fail as sophomores.

There was so much money that some schools felt flush with funds, including Brockton High, about 30 miles south of Boston, where administrators used to joke that they offered support 24/7.

Brockton — a large school of 4,300 students housed in a massive series of buildings the length of an aircraft carrier — is a success story. It's an urban school with many students from immigrant and low-income families — the kind of students many worry would fail a graduation test. Yet 95 percent of seniors passed the test in time to graduate last year.

Brockton administrators embraced the exam from the start. They worked with teachers to systematically dissect MCAS results. When they discovered that students faltered on questions about poetry, they taught more difficult poetry. When they saw that many students struggled with the hardest, four-point math questions, they taught them how to tackle those.

Every week, one department takes a turn giving practice test questions. The students' answers are graded by the teachers, then reviewed by the department head and the school's associate principal, Maria LeFort.

Students who fail the MCAS get support during school and after. In math, for example, students must enroll in a math review class and an MCAS math class, losing out on an elective in the process.

Students who take the MCAS multiple times are not big fans of the exam. Neither are some of the students who pass the first time. When students in one upper-level English class hear that Washington soon will have a graduation test, too, they groan.

Still, some say the test was good for them.

"It's definitely made me work harder in school," said Herve Altidor, 18.

Principal Susan Szachowicz is a strong supporter.

"It's the only reform I've seen in 30 years that has made a difference in academic achievement," she said.

Not that she thinks the test is perfect: She grabs the phone to call the state education office every time she sees a question she thinks is unreasonable for Brockton's many immigrant students, such as a reference to the "Good Humor Man." How is an immigrant from the Republic of Cape Verde supposed to know about that?

The money that helped Massachusetts' successes, however, is drying up. Staff at Brockton and elsewhere worry that scores may not continue to rise now that the remediation money has dropped from about $50 million a year at its height to less than $10 million.

That's certainly a concern in Tewksbury, a growing town about 20 miles north of Boston in a rural/suburban area. The staff at Tewksbury Memorial High School isn't as enthusiastic about the test. Principal Gerald Ferris, a friendly former math teacher and football coach, says up front that he thinks students would get more out of doing an exit exhibition than passing a paper-and-pencil test.

Still, he says, the politics of the Massachusetts test require schools to pay attention to their scores. And Tewksbury has worked to increase the number of students who score in the top two of the four levels of the test.

In Tewksbury, as in Brockton, staff carefully review each year's test results. (Unlike in Washington, all MCAS questions are released publicly each year. Teachers receive CDs with student answers as well.)

The school also requires all students to take the equivalent of four years of math — algebra and geometry — as freshmen and sophomores.

But now that the remediation money is nearly gone — down to about $7,000 a year from a high of about $94,000 — Ferris is worried. Last year, the percentage of students in Tewksbury who reached the highest levels on the test dipped. "I think it's beginning to show," he said.

All over the state, it's striking how much teachers and students sound like Washington teachers and students when they talk about high-stakes tests. Even though the Massachusetts test has, in many ways, become part of the landscape, concerns remain.

Many Massachusetts teachers say the curriculum is narrower — especially for students who fail the test and give up electives to take more math and English. Ferris holds his arms out to illustrate how wide education should be — and isn't — with all the focus on the MCAS.

"We need to get back here," he says.

Some also criticize the amount of test prep and wonder what students really gain by passing the exam. The percentage of students who must get remedial help in community colleges, for example, appears not to have declined.

Concern remains strong about students in special-education and English-language programs. Many of those students suffer in silence, says Brookline parent Lisa Guisbond.

Supporters, however, see real gains in student knowledge and better instruction across the board.

Before the graduation requirement, "I think kids were graduating without the kind of knowledge we'd expect they'd learn in high school," said Gail Stein, who runs the MCAS Center at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School.

Walser, the Cambridge School Committee member, is among many who say they have mixed feelings.

"Do I believe that it's good that we've judged kids by one test? No, I don't," she said. "Do I think it's served a purpose in terms of focusing on achievement? You betcha."

Whatever their views, however, it's clear teachers swallow them when it's time to help students.

Alison Kellie, the MCAS math teacher at Cambridge Rindge & Latin, doesn't think it's fair for so much to ride on one test. So why does she work in the MCAS center?

"It's a reality," she says. "Kids have to pass it, and I want them to pass it."

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com