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WHAT CAN EDUCATION BE WITHOUT HIGH STAKES TESTING?  
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Doug Selwyn
December 13, 2024
Greenfield Recorder
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_ In November 2024 Massachusetts voters ended the Massachusetts
Comprehensive Assessment System as the graduation requirement for
students. _

, The Searchlight

 

Ballot Question 2 passed with more than 59% of the vote, ending the
MCAS as a graduation requirement in Massachusetts. Students will still
take the MCAS, beginning in grade 3 up through high school, and they
will still be required to pass their high school classes that are
aligned with the state standards, so public education will not devolve
into chaos as the opponents warned in their scare ads. There will
still be a focus on serving all children in all of our classrooms,
children will still be assessed through multiple measures, and there
is hope that freedom from the one-size-fits-all straight jacket that
is a high-stakes testing regime will allow teachers to more fully
respond to the diverse learners in their classrooms.

The passage of Question 2 does raise questions and possibilities about
what comes next. Twenty other states have already stepped back from a
high-stakes testing graduation requirement (out of total of 27 that at
one time had high stakes tests). One of those states is New York,
which has just announced a multi- year plan for clarifying what their
new graduation requirements will be. They have already made clear that
to graduate from high school in the future, New York students will
have to demonstrate proficiency in seven key areas: critical thinking,
effective communication, cultural and social-emotional competences,
innovative problem solving, literacy across content areas, and status
as a “global citizen,” none of which are assessed by standardized
tests.

One of the places we might look to learn from is already located
within the public education system in New York state: the New York
State Performance Standards Consortium, a group of 38 public schools
that have received a waiver from the state exempting them from the
Regents exams, and that have been outperforming the public schools
that do require the Regents since 1998. I want to share a bit about
the Consortium here as an example of what education can look like
without high stakes testing, and how it can better serve the students
and educators.

The Consortium formed in 1998. NY State Education Commissioner Dr.
Thomas Sobel asked schools that were most effective to help those
schools that were least effective, and it turned out that those most
effective schools were assessing through a series of performance tasks
rather than through standardized testing. Dr. Sobel granted a waiver
to these schools so that they did not have to take the Regents exams,
and they came together to form the Consortium. There are currently
more than 30,000 students in Consortium schools, and they consistently
outperform those schools that do take the Regents exams.

When they talk about their approach and what is most important about
it, certain key elements stand out.

They value inquiry teaching and learning, promote student voices,
foster depth over coverage, and promote school culture built on
professional communities. Student assessment tasks grow out of the
work of the classroom. Tasks become possibilities for assessment only
after students and teachers have studied the material, discussed and
debated it, and subjected it to their questions and writing. Both
teacher and student become the creators of the task and take ownership
of it.

The assessment process focuses on extensive reading, writing, and
discussion across content areas in every grade, building towards the
graduation-level performance-based assessment tasks, known as PBATs.
All Consortium students prepare PBAT papers and oral presentations
that include:

■Analytic essays on literature

■Social studies research papers

■Lab reports of original science experiments or engineering designs

■Narratives of the process and solution of mathematical problem
solving

■Individual schools also add tasks in the arts, art criticism, world
languages, internship, or other areas.

Graduation-level PBATs are evaluated by external assessors using
rubrics which are developed and maintained by all of the schools in
the Consortium, for both writing and oral presentations. In addition,
a series of interim assessments and a range of classroom lessons,
papers and projects all prepare students for their final PBATs.

Teachers receive significant professional development and work
together with colleagues within their own schools and also across the
Consortium to develop, review, and critique curriculum and to develop
and maintain assessment rubrics. With such support and structure,
teachers stay year after year, an essential element in developing and
maintaining school culture.

Michelle Fine and KarynaPryiomka, in their report, ”Assessing
College Readiness Through Authentic Student Work
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emphasize the positive impact the Consortium’s approach has on
students, particularly young Black men:

“The authentic learning and assessment practices of Consortium
schools contribute to enhanced academic progress for students …
Diverse by race, ethnicity, immigration status, (dis)ability, gender,
housing circumstances, socioeconomic status, academic history, and
first language, these students begin high school with more marginal
academic records but graduate, enter college, persist in college, gain
credits, and sustain higher GPAs than their peers … Black males, in
particular, benefit from a Consortium education when compared to Black
males educated in traditional high school settings: They are
noticeably more likely to persist in college and to receive higher
grades.”

We have an extraordinary opportunity here in Massachusetts now that we
have been liberated from the high stakes MCAS system. The Performance
Consortium is only one example of what is possible when the focus is
on putting the students front and center, making choices that serve
them as learners, rather than forcing them to meet the demands of a
rigid system that does not recognize them as unique individuals and
learners. Ballot Questions 2 has opened some doors that have been
closed for decades. I hope that we care enough about our children and
are wise enough to walk through them.

_Doug Selwyn taught at K-12 public schools from 1985 until 2000 and
then at university as a professor of education until he retired in
2017. He is the chair of the Franklin County Continuing the Political
Revolution education task force. You can reach him at
[email protected]._

* high stakes testing
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* Education
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* Education Reform
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