Classroom Contradictions

By Sheryl Boris Schacter

Massachusetts, like so many other states, has its own version of a high-stakes test. In recent weeks, as the details of scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System have made their way from the state department of education to the school districts to the homes of test-takers to the floor of the Statehouse, they have been accompanied by extravagant commentary. We have been so inundated with analyses and argument that it becomes difficult to determine the lessons learned.

For instance, are the tests and the scores provided to help teachers identify and remediate student deficits? Are the scores for the purpose of punishing students who have not been able to perform adequately on this one test? Is the intention of the scores, and their publication for public consumption, to prove the ineptitude of the teaching force, to anger the parents, or to embarrass the students? Is the purpose to drive the point home that there are concrete effects of economic privilege on test results? Does the item analysis facilitate teachers' curricular adjustments? Is the agenda political and not educational, with the true struggle being between local and state control of instructional content? And lastly, to what extent does this single instrument embody our best thinking about assessment?

The debate underscores the massive confusion around the purposes and methods of educational assessment in general. Although it is the high-stakes MCAS exam in any state that is garnering headlines, the administration and articulation of this exam is but a symptom of the struggle between the profession's understanding of assessment and the public's lack of...