Television

Grading MCAS

by Kristin Lombardi

By now, the furor over the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System - better known as MCAS - is well known. This mother of all standardized tests has fast become the object of unprecedented anxiety among students, parents, and teachers - an anxiety reinforced by the dismally low scores to date. If 1999 results are any guide, as many as 25,000 10th graders statewide could fail the MCAS and thus be denied diplomas.

Anyone who has followed the debate would be wise to tune in to WGBH Channel 2 this week, when two 30-minute programs investigate the way education reform and the shift toward high-stakes testing have affected the Boston Public Schools. The first program, High Stakes at Madison Park, which airs November 14 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the regular Basic Black series, examines how reform touches schools with unique objectives. The show follows three students at Roxbury's Madison Park High School, the only vocational school in the city's system, as they struggle to meet the district's new promotion requirements. (To advance in Boston, students must pass three standardized tests in addition to their classes.)

Fear and loathing over the weight of MCAS is echoed repeatedly. Students who doubt they can pass the test wonder whether there's any point attending school at all. Teachers of these stressed students wonder how policymakers can expect instant success, considering how little public schools have offered students up to now.

A similar sentiment permeates the second program, Twenty Days to Tenth Grade, which airs November 15 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the series La Plaza. It gives a harsh inside view of summer school by following a fledgling teacher and his students at Charlestown High - a mere 20 of the 2000 Boston ninth graders who attended the session this year. As they try to master nine months of math in just five weeks, the teacher and students are forced to come to grips with what it means when MCAS becomes the factor for advancing to the next grade: only two students ended up passing.

Both shows provide plenty of ammunition for MCAS's critics, as well as fodder for future debate - something that is sure to continue. The programs are the latest in a series known as Eye on Education, a partnership between WGBH Boston, the Boston Globe, and WILD 1090 AM that aims to examine both the positive and negative effects of education reform. It features weekly programs about Greater Boston, radio specials on 89.7 FM, Globe articles, and a call-in program on WILD.

For further information about Eye on Education, check out www.wgbh.org/eyeoneducation.