The bias against
standardized testing has been growing rapidly in the last few years in high schools all over the United States. To a certain degree, it's very hard for me to look at that opposition with an impartial eye, because so many of the complaints come from overprotective parents of underachieving students who feel that their children deserve better.
I live in a suburban community where the system of honors classes has been broken down by waivers that allow parents to push their children into the honors track even if they failed their previous class. And they're used liberally. This anti-evaluation trend gets bigger every day.
That said, the MCAS really is a very bad thing.
amri makes some good points above. Last year I met a whole lot of vocational students who were taking the test over and over but not passing -- they hadn't even covered the material on it. I moved to the Massachusetts public school system in seventh grade and got mildly stiffed by the transfer, since I hadn't completed the standardized fifth- and sixth-grade humanities curriculum.
That same standardization has been wreaking havok with schools across the state, besides. The MCAS has become the standard lesson plan; geography was cut at my middle school in order to cover more MCAS material. The test cripples teachers' and schools' ability to determine their own methods and subjects.
Moreso, MCAS preparation services in the vein of the Princeton Review have sprung up everywhere -- even though the scores are largely meaningless.
The worst part, however, is the effect that the test has on underperforming districts. In Springfield, Massachusetts, 45 percent of students failed one of the test's two sections. In more suburban Longmeadow (remember, as amri said: rich neighborhoods = better schools), 3 percent failed, only five miles away.
Proponents of the MCAS take this opportunity to say "The tests are working! We've found problem school districts!" Gee. I could pretty easily have told you that without spending millions of dollars. Besides, little or no aid is actually funneling down to these schools -- the failure rates are going up, not down. Moreso, the students who are being denied diplomas are dropping out in great numbers; truancy in Massachusetts cities has reached unprecedented highs.
The anti-testing fervor is a very, very bad thing -- but the MCAS is no better.
It's true about "students new to this country." A girl in my school moved from France and was forced to take the test on her second week in the country -- and, in fact, her fourth week of English.