1 in 5 fail portion of Grade 10 MCAS (from Boston Globe)

I would be interested in a study that looks at the achievement of low-income Black and Latina/o students attending middle-class suburban schools. Once again, we are at a point across the country when the test scores from the spring will be publicly reported and the same old story will continue to emerge--there is an achievement gap by race and class. What is usually left out of the narrative is the opportunity gap and all the other factors that impact equity in education.
-Dr. Louie F. Rodriguez
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1 in 5 fail portion of Grade 10 MCAS
Addition of science to exam a factor
By James Vaznis
Globe Staff / September 17, 2008

The percentage of sophomores who passed the MCAS exam on the first try this year declined for the first time because thousands of students failed the science section, a new graduation requirement, according to statewide scores released yesterday.
Globe Graphic MCAS trends
Twenty percent of the class of 2010 failed at least one portion of the test, compared with 13 percent last year, when sophomores needed to pass only the math and English portions.
One of the few bright spots in the latest results of the 10-year-old Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam was math, where scores hit a historic high for all grade levels. But even there, state education officials expressed concern that middle school math performance remained stubbornly sluggish. Subpar math scores have largely caused the state to designate two-thirds of the state's middle schools for improvement under a federal accountability law, according to a recent Globe analysis.
Overall, the results of the spring exams showed a persistent achievement gap, with white and Asian students outperforming other students at all grade levels, often by a wide margin, while reading scores for the youngest test-takers declined.
The mixed results prompted many state education advocates to highlight the urgent need to jump-start the state's 15-year-old effort to overhaul education, which they contend has sputtered in recent years.
"State policy makers are getting wobbly in their support for education and high standards," said Jamie Gass, director of the Center for School Reform at the Pioneer Institute.
The results could also provide fodder for next year's debate on Governor Deval Patrick's sweeping 10-year plan to better prepare students for college and jobs in the fields that drive the state's economy: biotechnology, engineering, healthcare, and other science-related fields.
State education officials were mostly upbeat about the results during a press conference yesterday morning. They applauded improvement in performance among student groups who historically struggle on the exam, such as black and Latino students, although the officials voiced frustration that the achievement gap remains wide.
For instance, in Grade 4 math, Latinos scoring in the top two categories improved by 4 percentage points, to 28 percent. White students improved by 2 percentage points, to 56 percent. The four scoring categories are advanced, proficient, needs improvement, and warning/failing.
"Students of color and low-income backgrounds have made more progress than their counterparts . . . but we need to do a better job," said Mitchell Chester, the state's commissioner of elementary and secondary education.
Yesterday the state released only statewide results for the exam, which is given each spring to students in grades 3 through 8 and in Grade 10. Individual district and school scores are scheduled for release next week. The exam, part of the 1993 Education Reform Act, was first given to students in 1998.
Students in the class of 2010, who took the MCAS this past spring as sophomores, will be the first group that must pass the science exam to graduate, adding to a five-year-old graduation requirement for passing the math and English exams. Students have the choice of testing in biology, chemistry, physics, or technology/engineering, and must take at least one of those exams either their freshman or sophomore year.
While the decrease in the percentage of students passing the test disappointed many educators and advocates, many believed that students did much better than expected on the science exam. The 17 percent of sophomores who failed the science exam this year represented a decrease from the 25 percent who flunked last year.
"This is a great start," said Jill Norton, executive director of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy. "As people become more familiar with the science exam, we'll see scores increase in the coming years."
However, many student groups who typically struggle in school are in jeopardy of not graduating because of the science exam, alarming many educators and advocates. Overall pass rates for English, math, and science show barely half of black and Latino 10th-graders and less than half of students with disabilities passed. Even more staggering, just 28 percent of students who speak limited English passed all three tests.
By contrast, 85 percent or more of Asian and white students passed.
"A tremendous amount of work remains," said Lance Hartford, executive director of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation. "I'm increasingly concerned about the gap between inner-city students and what's going on with students in the rest of the state."
Boosting performance, educators and advocates said, may have to start as early as kindergarten to foster a genuine interest in the sciences among students. That, they said, will require devoting more time to the subject in elementary schools and more training for those teachers.
In secondary schools, the state is facing a critical shortage of qualified science teachers. Yesterday, educators and advocates said the state needs to do more to bolster the numbers by creating mentoring programs or paying those teachers more. Science labs, many of which date to the 1960s, also require updating.
In the short term, students who fail the science exam once can file an appeal with the state based on passing grades in a comparable high school course, under emergency rules adopted last week by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Students have to take the math and English exams three times before appealing.
Prospects for a successful appeal are slim. The department has granted only 2,800 appeals in the last five years, rejecting roughly 20 percent to 30 percent in recent years. A rejected appeal would force students to take the science test again.
Reading scores for younger students also raised concern. They dropped for grades 3, 4, and 5 after largely stagnating in recent years, prompting state education leaders once again to call for a renewed focus on the lower grades.
A student's ability to master reading is widely considered the best gauge of future academic success.
Chester said he believes schools are doing a good job in teaching the fundamentals of reading, such as letter and word identification, but more attention needs to be devoted to teaching students to read for meaning.
State Representative Patricia Haddad, a Somerset Democrat who is chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Education, said she found the flatness in the middle school scores in English to be the most worrisome.
"The middle school scores are a really good indicator of where kids are heading," she said.
Yesterday Chester and Education Secretary Paul Reville reaffirmed their support for MCAS testing as the governor embarks on a host of initiatives aimed at overhauling the education system. They were attempting to quash speculation within the state's education community that the less stringent appeals process on the science exam was a sign that the agency was softening its stance on MCAS as a graduation requirement.
"When you are adding a new requirement, like science," Chester said, "it's hard for me to see how that's backing off standards."
James Vaznis can be reached at jvaznis@globe.com.