STAFF EDIT: Concession Of Failure

Four years ago, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test was created to increase the quality of education in the state. By requiring high school students to earn a minimum passing score to receive their diploma, the Massachusetts Department of Education has placed high expectations on the students at Massachusetts public schools. However, with recent amendments to the scoring process, the Department of Education needs to re-evaluate the original goal of the MCAS test.

The Board of Education passed an appeals process yesterday that lowers the minimum score necessary to graduate from 220 to 216. Lowering the standards for this important test is a concession of failure on the part of the Department of Education. By decreasing the required scores, the Department of Education has betrayed the original intent of the test. While there have been problems with dangerously low test scores in many schools in the state, lowering the score requirement will not increase the quality of the state’s education system. Instead, the state should focus on hiring better teachers and developing stronger curricula.

If the Department of Education is looking to improve scores and work out the kinks of the MCAS test, it must do so in a more constructive manner. Redesign the questions or the format of the test instead of taking the easy way out. The students suffer in the long run when grades are trivialized.

The changes in the minimum scores show schools are no longer paying attention to the scholastic aptitudes of their students. They have turned their sights to raising their ranks among surrounding school systems, thus cheating students from the solid education they deserve. Teaching to the tests was a big enough challenge to overcome in the first place. Now, with the changes in scoring, students will receive less than the adequate amount of knowledge needed to succeed in the “real world.”