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Date: 9/6/2022
CHICOPEE – The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education raised The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test score requirements for students after a vote on Aug. 15. The increased emphasis on state testing has caused concern for some Chicopee leaders.
The new requirements will be in place starting with the class of 2026, or students who will be entering their freshman year. The new requirements raise the score students must reach to pass to 486 on the English and math exams and 470 for science and technology MCAS tests. Originally, the threshold for passing the exams was 472 for English and 469 for math.
The state still requires passing MCAS scores for students to receive their high school diplomas.
Ward 2 School Committee member David Barsalou expressed his opposition with the state’s decision during the opening minutes of the committee’s Aug. 17 meeting. In an impassioned plea, Barsalou declared that the timing for the decision was “horrible” as students are recovering from learning loss stemmed from the coronavirus pandemic.
“I don’t know if these people are totally clueless about what happened the last two and a half years, but our students were not in the classroom…many of them have fallen behind academically. To raise the standards on MCAS scores now is just boneheaded,” said Barsalou.
Barsalou cited the new requirements as inequitable to Massachusetts. While some affluent communities are educationally well-established, Chicopee and other gateway cities feature additional challenges due to higher poverty and food insecurity rates.
“I’ve had a number of students over the years who were lucky if they had a place to live…These people are not going to do as well on MCAS because there’s all kinds of barriers in front of them,” said Barsalou.
The School Committee member referenced other inequities, such as language barriers and special need students, who were not considered with the new requirements. Barsalou reflected on how one of his former students had to take the MCAS 17 times after immigrating from Puerto Rico.
“She didn’t get her high school diploma until she was 28 years old…Everybody is different, but they don’t look at that,” said Barsalou.
Barsalou expressed his belief that the MCAS does not consider the various paths students take toward post-high school careers, like vocational academies. He also emphasized that the state does not properly aid students who’ve struggled with the state mandated exam.
“Has anyone followed up on the thousands upon thousands of kids that never passed MCAS? How are they surviving? Nobody seems to care,” said Barsalou.
In the meeting’s aftermath, Mayor John Vieau’s Chief of Staff Michael Pise cited a similar concern with how the requirements impact communities like Chicopee.
“The problem we have is it disproportionately impacts Gateway Cities,” said Pise, who served on the School Committee for several decades.
Pise believes Gateway Cities require more state aid and funding to be able to mend the starker educational gaps caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“We tend to agree with the state’s trying to do ... we just want to make sure the process is fair to places like Chicopee,” said Pise.
Ward 1 School Committee member Timothy Wagner ran on a platform that opposed the state’s MCAS mandate for graduating high school in his 2021 election bid. Wagner said the new requirements mark a “wrong decision” from the state’s educational board.
“The state takes the wrong approach when it comes to education. They force tons and tons of curriculum upon municipalities and they up the standards, but they don’t always give us the support we need to make sure students are successful,” said Wagner.
Wagner cited lingering impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, alongside a nation-wide educator shortage, as reasons of concern for the rising requirements. The School Committee member said these impacts scale down to each grade level.
“It’s only going to get worse with the younger students, who are at an age where a good education is most important,” said Wagner.
Wagner expressed that the multitude of deficits are creating a concerning educational environment.
“It’s sort of a recipe for disaster and it’s a ticking time bomb,” said Wagner.