MA Teacher James Conway & High School Grad Ela Gardiner on MCAS Testing

[00:00:00] Albert Cheng: All right, well, hello, everybody. Good day. Good afternoon. Good evening from wherever you are. I’m one of your co hosts for this week’s episode of the LearningCurve podcast, Dr. Albert Cheng, coming to you from the University of Arkansas, and co hosting with me this week is none other than Meredith Coolidge. Meredith, good to see you again.

[00:00:41] Meredith Coolidge: Nice to be here again. Yes. My name’s Meredith Coolidge. I am the campaigns manager for Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts based right here in Boston.

[00:00:49] Albert Cheng: Yeah. And we’re going to be talking a lot about Massachusetts education reform on this show. We’ve got two guests that I’m really looking forward to having on the show.

[00:00:56] James Conway, who’s, who’s a teacher in the state and Ella Gardner, who’s in college now, but served on the, uh, Board of Education for Massachusetts for a period. So we’re going to talk Massachusetts education reform, MCAS, a lot of the stuff that’s making the press with respect to education in Massachusetts. But speaking of which, Hey Meredith, I think you had a article or at least a news development that caught your eye about MCAS, right?

[00:01:21] Meredith Coolidge: Yes, I mean, I’ve been so deep in MCAS over the past couple of months just with this big ballot initiative coming up. So the MCAS is definitely getting a lot of attention right now because of that question on the ballot, which I know we’ve talked about, Albert, but if it were to pass, it would remove our only statewide graduation standard.

[00:01:38] So it’s pretty, pretty terrifying for those of us here in the state. But also last week’s MCAS scores were released with just really highlighting the ongoing challenges, particularly related to pandemic learning loss. But I was pleased to see a study actually coming straight out of the Pioneer Institute this week, and it found that the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, so the MCAS, the results actually align with international exam performances, which confirm the accuracy of the state’s assessment.

[00:02:06] I thought this was very, very interesting. You know, the research shows between 2001 and 2015, Massachusetts student scores on international assessments matched that of Students in top performing countries, which outpaces also even the national averages of student performance. So, these results in combination with NAEP scores show that the MCAS assessment is a reliable indicator of student performance.

[00:02:29] This is particularly important as, you know, I think sometimes folks conflate the MCAS As the assessment itself, as the reason students are behind, but in reality, it’s really the only key thing that we have as a tool to be able to direct resources and really gain the information and knowledge that we need. So I was just pleased to see that it’s a reliable, reliable assessment.

[00:02:49] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah, no, I actually, you know, it reminds me of a study of Paul Peterson and I think Dan Hamlin, my good colleagues and friends of mine did before, showing the misalignment between state proficiency rates and other tests like NAEP.

[00:03:02] So it’s good to see that it doesn’t seem like MCAS has that sort of misalignment that you’re really getting a signal of student learning. And not just any student learning, but you know, pretty strong performance based on other benchmarks as well.

[00:03:14] Meredith Coolidge: Yeah, and I mean, we know that, you know, the MCAS is not the one indicator of student success. And here in Massachusetts, we tend to be ranked higher in our NAEP scores, number one sometimes, or top three most of the time. But we also know we’re really only number one for some students. And when you break down the demographic info, especially by race, that it sort of gets a little bit more thorny.

[00:03:35] So there’s definitely much more of a complicated picture here. But I think what I was just so glad to see is That it’s a reliable assessment, and I think that’s really the message that we’re trying to drive right now, you know?

[00:03:45] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, speaking of reliable assessments, an article from USA Today caught my eye. I don’t know if you’re a sucker for these things, I kind of am, um, you know, but, you know, USA Today always puts out these rankings of Best places to live in the United States, which I’m proud to say that Fayetteville, Arkansas here has been making the list pretty regularly over the past several years.

[00:04:09] Meredith Coolidge: That’s great.

[00:04:10] Albert Cheng: I love that, but I have no idea what that means, but I know I like living here. Um, but the article in USA Today that caught my eye was a ranking of states and their traditional public school systems. And so you can, Go to the website and look at the school ratings by state. And look, I mean, I don’t know if this is saying something, Massachusetts is number two on the list.

[00:04:33] So maybe there is some validity to this ranking, but I got to say, when I dug more into this article, I’m like, I don’t know that I really believe the way they scored things. I mean, essentially it’s a weighted average of things like average teacher salary or average per pupil spending, number of teachers employed, and you Look, at some point inputs do matter, but at the end of the day, I would like to think that judging the quality of education system, I mean, we’ve got to consider outputs here, you know, we’re talking about MCAS and other indicators of student learning.

[00:05:04] And incidentally, none of that was factored into this rating system. And what also struck me is it didn’t seem like the rating system adjusted for things like this. Cost of living, and actually the article even mentioned that failing to do that actually kind of distorts the results here. And so, I mean, look, if, if, if any of you are data junkies out there, I’d be curious to see how aligned or correlated the rankings in this article are with Simply, you know, median income and cost of living indicators by state.

[00:05:37] ’cause you’ve got places like New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, all at the top. And then you’ve got like these, these poor states, lower income states, you know, lower cost of living states towards the bottom. Incidentally, Florida and Arizona are at the bottom two. Uh, some of the two leading states that are doing a lot of policy innovation, particularly with school choice.

[00:05:55] So. I don’t know what to think of this. I think there’s a lot missing from this ranking system, so despite being a sucker for these things, maybe I got sucked into this. I was a little disappointed and underwhelmed by the way they did this. But anyway, these things are always fun to look at and think through.

[00:06:11] So I’ll leave it for you to look through in your own spare time, Meredith, if that so interests you. Yeah,

[00:06:16] Meredith Coolidge: I’m interested too to see as I was sort of You know, it’s funny that these are the two that we chose today, because they really complement each other. I was talking about before where we’re number one for some, right, or I guess number two this year for some.

[00:06:27] It frustrates me that it’s not really broken down by, you know, demographic information or socioeconomic information. And so, you know, it can be skewed in certain directions based on what maybe the affluent towns are doing versus, you know, inner cities or whatever. That piece is also sort of frustrating that it’s not telling the full story.

[00:06:46] So I’ll definitely be interested to, to dive deeper and see if that proves true.

[00:06:50] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, this is the challenge of dealing with averages. You know, everybody gets mushed into a single indicator. Well, Hey, we’re going to talk more about MCAS and Massachusetts education reform after the break.

[00:07:04] We’re gonna have James Conway, who again is a teacher at Revere High School, and Ella Gardner, who is a former Massachusetts Board of Education member, so stick around.

[00:07:25] The opinions expressed in this episode of Learning Curve Podcasts are the opinions of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Pioneer Institute. James Conway is a world history and psychology teacher at Revere High School, Massachusetts. And Ella Gardner is a freshman at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, former Massachusetts Board of Education member, and Wellesley High School Massachusetts alumna. James and Ella, welcome to the show. It’s really a pleasure to have you on.

[00:07:54] James Conway: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:07:55] Albert Cheng: Thank you. James, let’s start with you. We’d love your perspective on a lot of the issues that are going on, particularly with your background as a teacher. So, you know, in 1993, most folks that listen to the show are familiar with all the reform efforts under the Massachusetts Education Reform Act.

[00:08:13] It had a highly progressive state funding formula, high stakeholdings. State’s testing, uh, you know, the MCAS with, uh, learning standards, accountability systems, and all of it arguably has been a great historic success. So yeah, could you just give us your take on the Massachusetts Education Reform Act? You know, how has it been a success?

[00:08:32] How has it been a real, a keystone of your state’s remarkable achievements in K 12 education?

[00:08:38] James Conway: I think the biggest aspect of it is that it’s been able to ensure excellence and equity, both in the sense that there’s equity between fluent and less affluent districts, since they’re both held to the same standard.

[00:08:51] And in the sense that there’s excellence, because it’s a higher standard than most states, it’s even a higher standard than Common Core. And if you compare our results on PISA and other international metrics, obviously you’ll see these headlines that say, oh, the U. S. is down to other countries in testing, but Massachusetts, if it were to be its own country, would hold its own weight with our East Asian and Nordic peers. Based on the MCAS and other tests like that.

[00:09:16] Albert Cheng: Yeah, no, that’s absolutely right. And actually, you know, the pre earlier segment of the show, we just talked about a Pioneer Institute report that just came out that was basically articulating some of that same, the same evidence you’re referencing. Let’s talk a little bit about the standards.

[00:09:28] So the Massachusetts Education Reform Act required the state to, as you said, establish liberal arts and STEM centric. Curriculum frameworks, and really they were there to help schools develop curricula by specifying the academic content that students should be able to master. You know, maybe the listeners are, our listeners are unaware, but you know, these standards are actually developed, were developed after many years of public debate and input from teachers such as yourself and other experts in English, writing, math, a lot of the other content areas that we typically teach in our schools.

[00:10:00] internationally benchmarked as well, you know, and together with an eye towards authentic college readiness. So we’d like to hear your take as a teacher. Talk about the standards on which MCAS testing is based.

[00:10:13] James Conway: I mean, I’m a social studies teacher, so we don’t have, we are the only subject that’s not MCAS tested.

[00:10:17] I wish we were for the record, since I think there’d be more attention paid to social studies if it was an MCAS subject. Both in terms of hiring and getting curriculum support. But, that being said, I still use ELA standards, both to assess my own students based on their writing, and also to sort of assess incoming students based on, I teach 11th and 12th graders, based on their 10th grade results, I can sort of see who’s, you know, sort of see the levels of the students that I’m getting in terms of their reading and writing proficiencies.

[00:10:45] So the ELA standards and their scores are actually really important pieces of data for me, since I can sort of group them together Especially in the core class, which is still heterogeneous, I can group those students based on their ability with students of different abilities. So that way the groups can kind of help each other out doing some of these performance based assessments.

[00:11:04] So I find the ELA data to be very helpful and it’s a nice little tool. Marker that kind of tells us, okay, this kid’s either proficient, advanced, or, you know, needs some improvement on their writing and reading ability.

[00:11:15] Albert Cheng: Well, you know, kind of picking up on your remarks there, look, in addition to the across the board improvements in educational outcomes throughout the whole state, really, we’ve seen achievement gaps based on race and class close in Massachusetts.

[00:11:29] You know, we have folks, these names like E. D. Hirsch, folks, you know. Really finding that Massachusetts is one of the few states that made the most progress at closing achievement gaps between the late 90s and the early 2000s. We’ve got data showing scores of African American students, Hispanic students, low income students based on fourth and eighth grade NAEP, uh, you write the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

[00:11:52] The reading test scores have improved more rapidly than those of white students and students from more advantaged backgrounds. So, I mean, you, you mentioned how MCAS and the standards was a way to equalize opportunity. Could you say more about that? You know, how have you used MCAS to achieve this aim?

[00:12:11] James Conway: That’s a great point. I think, you know, we aren’t going to be able to close achievement gaps unless we can identify where they are and direct the right resources to both the communities, the districts, and the individual students who need them to be able to make proficiency. And in our case, my particular district is 70 percent Hispanic, And I think 25 percent English learner at this point.

[00:12:32] We’re also majority low income and a majority of students are on IEPs. So it’s very helpful for a district like ours because we can use that data to argue for more funding, right? So we’re going to be getting equalized funding through the Share Our Future Act and through other equalizing reforms that have happened in the last few years.

[00:12:50] And it allows us to basically make the argument, hey, we are closing these gaps. We do have some additional gaps that need to be closed. Thank you. And if we have more funding and resources, we can close them even further. When it comes to both retaining families and retaining staff, the fact that we can say that, you know, we’re kind of in the middle of the pack for pupil funding, but the fact that our MCAS scores are so high, we can sort of punch above our weight.

[00:13:13] We’ve even had a superintendent in the past call us a Buddha, our best serving district in America, and he was able to use MCAT data to sort of prove that point. So at a time when public schools face some competition from, you know, parochial schools and charters, we’re able to say to families, Hey, this is a school district that’s actually doing quite well.

[00:13:31] And we’re doing quite well, not just by white students, but by students of all backgrounds. So that’s where the data really is important for us.

[00:13:39] Albert Cheng: That’s great. And so I, you know, I want to, again, just pick up on this, and you, you alluded to this point, you know, not only are you making a case for, you know, how well your district and school are doing, but could you talk about the importance of MCAS as a tool for instruction and evaluating academic outcomes?

[00:13:57] And in particular, I want to give you a chance to weigh in on the statewide ballot. And initiative that’s on the books here to scrap MCAS. What would that mean for trying to address achievement gaps and helping you provide instruction and evaluating how well your students are doing?

[00:14:11] James Conway: You know, obviously the proponents of that question are saying that the test wouldn’t go away, that we’d still have access to that data.

[00:14:18] But I do have a feeling that, uh, Everyone would take the test a lot less seriously, right? There’s sort of a bargain that we made with voters that if you give us the resources to succeed, in exchange, we’ll have this accountability to the voter and the taxpayer that we’re going to do, use these resources to do the work, to actually close these gaps and prove that we’ve helped students achieve, and I think by getting rid of that requirement, people are going to take it a lot less seriously, and you’re going to go back to the days where, um, You know, Massachusetts, we have, I think, roughly around 350 or so school districts, so you’d have 350 different graduation requirements.

[00:14:51] So instead of having one statewide graduation requirement, so you know that someone who comes from my district, which is a more blue collar district, and someone who comes from a more affluent district, both those high school graduates, if you’re an employer, or if you’re a college, you’re going to know that they both went to a Massachusetts high school that had these high standards.

[00:15:07] If we get rid of that high standard, which is really only enforced by the graduation requirements, then it’s going to go back to the days where you might assume, well, at schools and, you know, from a less affluent area, that might not have the same standards as the school, as a student from an affluent area.

[00:15:21] And especially when, you know, people like Governor Shapiro, Vice President Harris, Governor Healey are talking about having high school diplomas be a gateway to employment and not just a college diploma, which I’m all for, but having more high school diplomas. Students get employed without necessarily having to go to college.

[00:15:37] If we’re going to be making that argument, though, we should have the high school standards be high, and we should have a graduation requirement, so that way we know everyone who graduates from Massachusetts High School has learned the same material and has gained the same skills. So I think we are at risk of jeopardizing that, and I actually think, even though the proponents of this question are arguing that it’ll increase equity, it’ll actually increase inequity, because I think you’ll have a disinvestment in schools that are in less affluent areas.

[00:16:04] That’s one of the consequences of this ballot question, if it passes.

[00:16:08] Albert Cheng: Right. Yeah. Thanks for that. And yeah, I really enjoyed your perspective. I want to turn it over to Meredith and bring Ella on to get her perspective.

[00:16:15] Meredith Coolidge: That’s great. You know, the teacher, the teacher perspective is so important. And we also have the student perspective here.

[00:16:21] So Ella, you’re a recent graduate from a Massachusetts high school who’s now at a competitive college. And, you know, thank you Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day as a first year in college to talk to us. Can you just share a little bit about the academic quality of your high school curriculum and how difficult you and your peers found it to pass the English Language Arts, Math, and Science MCAS tests?

[00:16:42] Ela Gardiner: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on here as well, Meredith, and you too, Albert. It’s funny because going through high school, I knew that I was getting an excellent education, and I can’t tell you exactly how I knew that, but you could just feel it, and, you know, that’s primarily through really feeling interested in my classes, feeling like I was walking out of my classes with, you know, a wealth of knowledge that I was You know, being given, being taught, but also just, you know, the connections I was having with my teachers and such and such.

[00:17:12] So, you know, throughout my high school experience, I knew that I was getting a really high quality education, but since coming to college and meeting students from all different regions, all different states, even different countries from different backgrounds, it was really kind of this realization moment of, oh, wow, this is.

[00:17:34] truly how high quality my high school education was in Massachusetts. And coming to college and being able to, you know, meet people from different backgrounds, like I was saying, and from different states who went through different types of public education systems, I kind of realized, I was like, Oh, wow, like, this is, this is really, really good.

[00:17:54] And I think also seeing my sister go through, you know, the, she’s in, she’s an eighth grader in middle school, her going through the public education system, I’m sitting there going, Oh, yep, Like, she’s, she’s ready, you know, like, even as far back in middle school, we’re preparing our students for future successes, no matter what that looks like.

[00:18:13] So, I really do feel proud of being a Massachusetts public school, high school graduate, but it really is quite amazing, just the sheer level of quality and knowledge that, you know, You know, our teachers here in Massachusetts are able to, you know, provide their students with, but to the second part of your question about kind of passing the MCAS, truthfully, it really wasn’t something that we were, you know, holding our heads in our hands, fretting about when we woke up in the morning or sitting in class, Say, Algebra 2, which, you know, at my high school was the 10th grade math class.

[00:18:50] We weren’t sitting in class stressing about the MCAS, and that wasn’t because we didn’t care. It was because we knew that we were being taught what we needed to know, and we knew that we had trust in the teachers and the curriculum that our teachers had developed would get us to the point of success when we would go and take that MCAS in March.

[00:19:10] And truthfully, there really was no The test itself isn’t difficult, and I say that as someone, you know, who graduated from a relatively privileged high school and public school district, but I’ve heard sentiments from other students who have graduated from schools in western Massachusetts that are maybe not as funded, or from schools on the south coast that also, you know, are majority minority.

[00:19:37] Those are You know, students who also share that same sentiment of, it is not difficult to pass because ultimately if you’re taught what you need to know, as the standards lay out, as should be taught, it’s not something that’s difficult. And that’s a sentiment that in my conversations is, like I said, shared.

[00:19:57] by students across the state.

[00:19:59] Meredith Coolidge: That’s an important perspective, Ella, and I’m glad to hear it wasn’t something that, you know, festered this big anxiety for you every day and you were able to really enjoy high school and have it prepare you for college. MCAS opponents often falsely claim that MCAS testing is excessive and cuts into instruction time, which is the opposite of what you just described.

[00:20:19] Could you talk about how your school district taught the Massachusetts state standards and whether you thought the material taught in class was aligned to those standards and prepared you to pass MCAS, as well as national tests like the SAT and ACT?

[00:20:32] Ela Gardiner: Yeah. And I want to start off this by saying, you know, the opponents of MCAS, They like to use this phrase, teaching to a test, and quite frankly, from a student perspective, I don’t find that to be true, and honestly, you shouldn’t be teaching to a test.

[00:20:48] I think myself and the opponents to MCAS agree on that basis. Teachers should not be teaching to a test, but where we differ is, what does that look like? I would say what should be happening, as I alluded to in my last answer, is that Teachers should develop curriculum that inherently integrates the standards that DESE lays out, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for students to learn and be able to achieve so that their profile of a graduate really, truly is cohesive and prepares them for whatever the future might hold, whether it’s a four year or two year college, whether it’s going into the workforce or military.

[00:21:26] There really is no such thing as teaching to a test if the standards are truly being integrated into the curriculum and taught by the teachers. And I would say that using that kind of as a basis for, you know, your question, it is inherently aligned. And if the standards are being taught as they should be, passing the MCAS is no problem.

[00:21:50] And the MCAS is then perfectly aligned with. what we were taught in class. And we saw this time and time and again. The curriculums are developed around the statewide standards. The MCAS helps enforce those on an objective manner. And teachers shouldn’t have to take time out of their lesson if those standards were adequately incorporated into their curriculum to make sure that they were able to teach what they wanted to teach, but make sure the students got the knowledge and the skills they needed to in order to succeed on the MCAS.

[00:22:19] And I appreciate you bringing up the SAT and ACT because I think this is an interesting component of the conversation that we’re having about MCAS and high stakes testing, because I would go as far as to say, teachers in Massachusetts, at least in my high school experience, we’re better prepared to pass the MCAS than we are the SAT or ACT, because the MCAS.

[00:22:43] is inherently ingrained into our curricula in a way that maybe the SAT or the ACT isn’t. The SAT and ACT assume that students say take pre calculus or a certain degree of calculus in order to succeed. And that was a problem for a student like me who didn’t take pre calculus or calculus in high school.

[00:23:03] I took an alternative route that focused on more personal finance and statistics. And so when it came to taking the SAT and the ACT, it was kind of, you know, a mismatch because My path of education didn’t exactly align to that, but the thing with the MCAS is that it’s not necessarily making sure that, you know, the students who are graduating have this great competency in, you know, calculus, let’s say, but instead making sure they have basic skills, such as data analysis or critical thinking that we learn in math classes, but it’s applicable to every single program of study, thinking in college.

[00:23:39] I mean, I’m a planned politics major. I have nothing to do with math in college, but I find myself using skills that I was taught in my Algebra 2 class and that were tested on the 10th grade MCAS every single day to make sure I’m an A, an informed citizen, and B, I’m succeeding in critical thinking and data analysis skills, which is useful in every, every facet of life.

[00:23:58] Meredith Coolidge: That’s great, Ella. And I’m actually, I’m just going to quickly ask a follow up question on the MCAS point. So you’re talking about how it really wasn’t a huge, you know, I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but it really wasn’t a huge deal for you and that you felt like your education was based around the standards.

[00:24:13] Do you feel like if the MCAS were to go away or the graduation requirement in particular were to go away, that your teachers would still be teaching you the knowledge and skills that you need to know?

[00:24:22] Ela Gardiner: Well, they shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be a question of whether or not the MCAS is here or not. It should be a question of.

[00:24:28] Teachers are teaching the standards that are set out. Whether we have an MCAS as a graduation requirement or not, teachers should be teaching the standards that they are laying out. And what the MCAS does and what would happen if question two were to pass, we would lose that objective measure to ensure that the teachers are incorporating those standards into their classroom curricula.

[00:24:49] And, you know, I hear a lot of people say, well, we need to trust our teachers. You know, the teachers know best. I’m not disagreeing with that. I absolutely think teachers know their students and teachers, you know, want what’s best for their students. I 100 percent agree, but taking away the MCAS graduation requirement leaves us susceptible to things like grade inflation, which a lot of people don’t actually talk about, but it’s something that is actually becoming more into the spotlight in education policy talk, 12 spaces, because we’re seeing grades Just be inflated and grade inflation is on the rise, even here in Massachusetts.

[00:25:25] So how are we ensuring that there is an objective measure of what teachers should be teaching, whether or not they have an MCAS that is supposed to be, you know, keeping them in check for that, so to speak, making sure that there is that sort of level playing field of, okay, was this skill taught? Was this, you know, did the student take in that knowledge?

[00:25:45] And when those results come back, there’s a conversation that can be had between the student and the teacher to say, okay, why did I not take in that information? I, the student, or was there, was there something that I need to develop myself? Was I just not studying as well as I could be? Or was I not processing the way that the teacher was teaching?

[00:26:04] Or the way that, you know, the teacher was feeding information? Or did they just skip over that topic? And those are conversations that we need to have, and having the MCAS as a graduation requirement helps get us there.

[00:26:15] Meredith Coolidge: That’s great insight Ella. Very, very interesting. I know you sort of already alluded to what I’m going to ask you, but you’re in college now at Hobart and you interact with students from around the country and even around the world.

[00:26:25] Can you talk a little bit more about the level of academic preparation that you received here in Massachusetts and how that compares to your peers in college and how well they were prepared for college level work?

[00:26:36] Ela Gardiner: I think the biggest thing that I would highlight here is writing. And I say that because, you know, as a social sciences major and at a liberal arts school like I am.

[00:26:45] Writing is a huge component of the college experience, and the thing that I’m really seeing myself kind of have that leg up over my peers is my writing skills, is my comprehension skills of when I’m listening to a lecture, I’m really able to digest information and sort of bring it down into the key points to be able to then go and produce a good essay, or, you know, make sure that I have good basic grammar or spelling or a vocabulary that’s maybe wider than some of my other peers.

[00:27:13] That’s all because of High school curriculum in Massachusetts. Those aren’t skills that I, you know, picked out from, you know, a tree or whatever that I can just take myself. No, that was stuff that I directly attribute to learning in class. And if it hadn’t been for, you know, say my English classes or even I know James is a social studies teacher, as he mentioned, my social studies classes, you know, we get that broad array of writing skills, which is also tested on the MCAS to make sure that we are attaining at least a basic minimum of comprehension skills.

[00:27:49] and writing skills. That, I would say, is where I primarily see my leg up here at college, and I would just say, generally, I felt very prepared going into college. I know that my peers, whether they are from Wellesley or whether they’re from high schools across the state, share similar sentiments, that they really do feel like they have a leg up from their peers because of their high school education.

[00:28:10] Meredith Coolidge: That’s excellent, Ella. Um, I Went to a college in Massachusetts and had many peers in my college who were from Massachusetts and I sadly was not from Massachusetts and so I can definitely attest to the high quality of education here. So that’s great to hear. Finally, as a Massachusetts high school graduate who passed the MCAS and a current college student, could you talk a little bit about what you think would happen to academic achievement in the Bay State schools if passing the MCAS was removed as a High school graduation requirement and what the long term academic implications would be for our students.

[00:28:43] Ela Gardiner: Yeah, and I know James touched on this a little bit when he was speaking with Albert. The biggest thing to me is we would lose that equal playing field that Massachusetts and education leaders in Massachusetts and quite frankly all across the nation strive for in public education. And without an MCAS graduation requirement, we fall To one of few states, to the likes of Alabama and Mississippi, who do not have a statewide graduation standard to ensure students, no matter of their background, no matter of their zip code, no matter of their race, their socioeconomic background, where they live, that they can get a quality education.

[00:29:22] That is both fulfilling, makes them enjoy their time in high school in Massachusetts public schools, but also critically prepares them for their future. And I keep going back to, you know, what that future looks like. And it doesn’t just have to be college. The MCAS is not just a tool that we have implemented, we being NERA, have implemented to make sure that our kids are going to college.

[00:29:46] It’s to make sure that they’re prepared for life. Of course the skills that I learned from, you know, that are reinforced by the MCAS are there. Critical to my college education, but they’re critical to me as well after my college education. They’re critical to me when I’m going into the workforce or when I’m, you know, trying to find a job or when I’m looking at retirement savings, when I’m trying to manage my personal wealth.

[00:30:11] That’s all things and skills that were taught or should be being taught. in Massachusetts high schools that the MCAS makes sure that every single graduate who walks across a graduation stage with a diploma has. And we are doing, it’s a favor to, it’s not even a favor to students, it is a duty that we have to our students to make sure that they are prepared to continue their lives in whatever path they may choose.

[00:30:39] And I think that’s something critical, because if we get rid of the MCAS as a graduation requirement, like Jane said, we end up with every school district having individual graduation standards. We have no way of MCAS. I’m just saying that myself as a Wellesley High School graduate has the same caliber and basic skills and knowledge and opportunities available to them as a result of their high school education as the kid who’s walking across the graduation stage in North Adams or in Brockton.

[00:31:09] The MCAS as that graduation requirement and as that statewide standard, we have no way of making sure that all the students who are graduating have the same opportunity for success because of the skills that they are awarded.

[00:31:25] Meredith Coolidge: Well, thank you, Ella, for that important perspective as a student and for, you know, volunteering your time to talk to us.

[00:31:31] Really, really appreciate it. I’m going to hand things back over to Albert.

[00:31:34] Albert Cheng: James and Ella, thanks for taking your time to be with us on the show and to weigh in on a lot of the pressing issues that are going on in Massachusetts.

[00:31:43] Ela Gardiner: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for having me too.

[00:31:57] Albert Cheng: Well, Meredith, I think that was a real treat to have a teacher and a student who actually just, you know, finished her K 12 schooling in Massachusetts way in on some of these issues.

[00:32:08] Meredith Coolidge: Yes. It was so great to hear such important and powerful voices on this. I mean, these are the people that we really need to be listening to is the teachers and students and, you know, this is their opinion.

[00:32:17] They think it’s important. So, It was great.

[00:32:20] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Well, that’s going to bring us to the end of our show, but before we close out, I want to give the tweet of the week. And this one comes from a guest we had in the past, Emily Hanford. So if you didn’t catch her episode about reading instruction and phonics and really addressing the myths and misunderstandings about effective reading instruction, check out that episode.

[00:32:40] Um, I don’t know when the date was, but you’ll find it on the Pioneer Learning Curve website. But hey, she’s tweeted an article. Essentially, describing the same situation across the pond, so to speak, in Wales, that schools all over Wales are using these methods, like 3Qing, which, I mean, look, I’m pretty convinced now that the reading research is pretty strong, and they’re just using these methods that, where the evidence base is a lot weaker.

[00:33:11] And so, what’s happening is, is a lot of, Students in Wales are simply not reading ready. And really look to the previous point we were talking about earlier in the show, Meredith, some of these students aren’t tested, or at least there’s not good data for the learning progress they’re making. And so not only are we using a pedagogical approach for reading instruction, that’s doesn’t really have the evidence backing, but they’re not getting really great indicators of these students progress or really lack thereof.

[00:33:37] So really I want to. Point listeners to look at that article, really fascinating thing, and to see that a lot of the issues of reading instruction aren’t just here in the States, but they’re all over the English speaking world.

[00:33:46] Meredith Coolidge: That is interesting. And I think Emily Hanford is just such a gift to getting this message out and making sure that we’re all listening to her podcast too, uh, Soul Disorder.

[00:33:56] I recently re listened to it on a road trip and there’s a couple new episodes out that are really interesting about sort of the impacts of the last couple of years about how legislation has changed. So, I will definitely be interested to look at the Wales example and also urge listeners to re listen or listen to the newest episodes of her, of her podcast.

[00:34:15] Albert Cheng: Yeah, that’s right. And again, I guess we like to make listeners listen to tons of podcasts on the show. You know, I’m going to plug next week’s episode. I’m going to have Katie Everett, who’s the executive director of the Lynch Foundation in Boston. So that’s going to be a real treat to hear from her and the work of the Lynch Foundation.

[00:34:31] And before we close out, Meredith, I just want to thank you for co hosting. It’s always a pleasure.

[00:34:35] Meredith Coolidge: So much fun. Thanks for having me.

[00:34:37] Albert Cheng: All right. Well, everyone, we will see you next week. Have a good one.