According to a recent article on wbur, teachers in Hingham mass have come to a general consensus that the "MCAS is misguided in evaluating teachers," as well as students. Testing can be viewed as a high stress situation to many students, so even if you were to have straight A's in a class, and be an amazing writer, neither of those would necessarily translate into a passing MCAS score. It is also highly stressful since it is a graduation requirement to pass the test. In my opinion, testing in general is not always an accurate reflection of a students abilities, and the MCAS is definitely one of those kind of tests. It is extremely unfair that the test scores also reflect back on a school. My elementary, middle, and high school had very low MCAS scores in general, but there was never any mention of our test scores in relation to the percentage of students we had that spoke English as a second language. The same goes for a teacher--if a particular teacher has a lot of students who speak English as a second language, and they receive lower test scores, this should not be seen as a negative reflection of the teachers abilities at all. According to the Orange and Black article from Wayland Middle School, some believe that the testing is good because it allows a teacher to be more structured and know when certain material should be studied, but isn't that what a school board does for the teachers anyway? From that same newspaper, others are quoted saying that it is more stressful than anything, and that it is much too long of a test to be accurate, since the students are exhausted by the end of it. I understand that it provides a way to make sure that schools are on track, but there should definitely be a more accurate way to do it. MCAS testing seems to be an unfair and somewhat biased test, which I do not think should reflect on the teachers or the schools, and that it should not be seen as a graduation requirement for students to fulfill.
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