Letter: Teacher urges Yes vote on MCAS Question 2
29 October 2024
As middle school math teacher with 19 years of classroom experience, I feel compelled to share a perspective on ballot Question 2.
The MCAS graduation requirement has very significant unintended negative impacts on all students, even for high-achieving students in high- performing districts, like the one I teach in.
I have taught many bright students who also happen to have special education needs.
And there is such value to having classrooms with diverse learners and thinkers.
When students who are truly creative thinkers become comfortable enough to share their thoughts, ideas and questions, it enriches the learning experience for all students.
Real learning takes place when students are exchanging ideas, taking risks, and inspiring each other under the guidance of skilled and highly trained educators.
The demands of a high-stakes standardized test destroy that type of educational opportunity,
It is an injustice when smart, accomplished students who do well in my classes are at risk of being penalized when they cannot fully demonstrate their knowledge on a standardized test.
The MCAS exams tell me more about a student’s test-taking skills than they do about what a student knows about math.
The important things to remember about Question 2 are that passing this measure only replaces the 10th grade MCAS graduation requirement and leaves the test itself in place as a diagnostic tool.
The state’s uniform academic standards remain in place, and students will need to successfully complete coursework aligned with those standards in order to graduate.
The high stakes of the MCAS exams also affect my curriculum in many different ways. For example, I no longer use a computer-based lesson that uses animation to demonstrate how a square and circle who share a fixed perimeter will create a different shared area as you adjust to make the perimeter of the square larger while the perimeter of the circle gets smaller.
It’s a fun, visual lesson that develops a bridge between the area of a circle and quadratic functions.
It’s typically a successful lesson for everyone. The best way to suck all of the fun out of this lesson, would be to create multiple-choice questions in advance of doing the lesson with my students.
Because it extends beyond seventh grade standards for circles and circle formulas, I won’t be doing this lesson this year, I don’t have time.
I am losing 10 school days to standardized testing, and this type of rich learning never shows up on standardized tests.
Sparking curiosity must be the goal, not teaching students how to take a test.
To create conditions in Massachusetts where all students are challenged appropriately in school, where curiosity drives classroom discussions and learning, vote yes on 2!
Elizabeth Tyrell
Ipswich
