Letter: We gave MCAS a chance

4 October 2024

MCAS is a difficult subject. Granted, I became an adult before standardized testing became the requirement for receiving your high school diploma, and I have no children of my own to be familiar with the issue, however, we cannot ignore the statistics. MCAS is a failure in its capacity to ensure that students have all the scholastic skills required to function in life, whether they go on to higher education or not.

In my youth, standardized testing was only used as a measuring tool for educators and parents, to gauge where individuals were achieving, and where they were lacking in their studies; it was never as the sole determining factor to a high school degree. A student’s final grade was determined by the culmination of factors, between final exams within each subject, especially English (whether you could read and write, and comprehend what is read), and U.S. history (at least knowing enough to know you have the right to speak, shut up, or know that Lewis and Clark did not like each other a whole lot).

Even years before the pandemic, MCAS was hotly debated among parents, teachers, and school committees across the state as to its effectiveness. There is a whole lot more out there to learn as each generation comes into the world, and what was supposed to simplify public education, only complicated matters. We can say we gave MCAS a chance, and it did not help to improve public education as a whole.

Stephen Cook

Beverly