EdAction
Maple River Education Coalition PAC
105 Peavey Rd, St 116 
Chaska, MN  55318 
952-361-4931
http://www.EdAction.org
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March 12, 2001

MCA's: The Big Lie

Right now thousands of 3rd and 5th graders all over Minnesota are taking their Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, the hammer the State uses to hold the 347 Independent School Districts accountable to the Profile of Learning at the K-8 level.

The Maple River Education Coalition would like to correct the blatantly false statements that are being made by the Department of Children, Families and Learning (DCFL), newspapers and other media, administrators and even some school board members that "ALL STUDENTS MUST take these tests as required by Minnesota Statute 120B.30". (Emphasis mine.)

This is absolutely false! The statute requires the Commissioner of the DCFL to align tests to the Profile of Learning and to administer them annually to students in grades 3, 5 and 8. (The 8th grade Basic Skills Tests meet the 8th grade requirement.) The statute says the Commissioner must provide the tests, the districts must give the tests, but the statute does not require students to take the tests in grades 3 and 5.

The Associated Press and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, quoting the Department of Children, Families and Learning, also mask the truth by saying that the tests are required but there are no consequences for not taking it.

The test is not required. That is why there are no consequences.

I and several other parents across the state have personally spoken to the DCFL. When asked if the test is required, DCFL staff are preprogrammed to say, "Yes." When pressed on the issue and their backs are against the wall, they will tell you that the only requirement is that the district give the tests.

The reason this is such a sensational issue is that these tests are meaningless to children and to their parents. They are used as a "benchmark" to see if the Profile of Learning is being sufficiently taught in the "preparatory" levels (K-8). They measure the school district, not the student, as they are sold to the public. While the student does receive a score on these tests, the score is not used for remediation, because the tests are top-secret and the score reflects an overall grade on the subject, not specific problem areas that can be identified by looking at the test.

These tests are not used to pass or fail children who are doing poorly in reading, math or writing. They are used to "assess" the school and the teacher on the State-mandated philosophies in education. I find it rather absurd that parents would, if they knew, place their children in a testing room for five school days with tests only the student will ever see, that will never give the parent any true idea of the child's prowess in that area or demand any results on behalf of the child. In fact, under the entire Profile of Learning, what the state calls its "high standards," students never have to pass a test.

If you are a school board member, try to take a look at an MCA. If you are a parent, see how far you get when you want to see your child's MCAs. To the best of my knowledge, and I study education in Minnesota every day, no parent has ever seen one of these assessments that approximately 120,000 students take each year.

These tests are part of the two-part assessment system for the Profile of Learning that is referred to in statute 120B.30. In other state documents the true colors of these assessments are more easily identified:

"The states, aware and proud of their role as 'laboratories' for the country, are always experimenting. The assessments being constructed to measure the defined goals and objectives will be new and will incorporate innovative and 'unproven' measurement techniques (performance packages)." ("The Design of an Assessment System Related to the Minnesota Profile of Learning," January 27, 1998, American Institute for Research, commissioned by the MN Department of Children, Families and Learning.)

Are parents being given accurate information today? Are their questions to the administration and school board welcomed? Is there any reason for students to take the MCA's? The answers are no, no and no.

These tests are not an accurate measurement of how your child is doing in math, reading or writing. Take their score, cut it in half and consider that score more accurate according to what you and I regard as academic excellence. These same students who look so good on these tests in 3rd and 5th grade are the same students that are failing the 8th grade test in math that is required to graduate and, by the State's own admission, is a 6th grade level test.

To make matters worse, the MCA's are being expanded to a 10th grade reading test and a 11th grade math test. My school district is a pilot site for both. Our 10th and 11th graders would have taken them last year, but the state was involved with their testing snafus, so they were postponed to this year. I wonder how many of the parents that had children in the 11th grade knew ahead of time about the morning-long MCA in math that was given to the entire class about two weeks ago? Probably very few. I would suspect that they still do not know.

I knew because my daughter casually mentioned the night before that she had to take a state math test. Knowing about the MCA's and their plans for future tests in other grades, it was easy for me to extrapolate what kind of a test this was and that it would in no way benefit my daughter.

I also knew that our principal had made a comment about a year ago that said something to the effect, "We are either going to have to bribe the students to take the 10th and 11th grade MCA's or we are going to have to keep it a secret and surprise them." (Paraphrased)

I guess they chose the latter. Even the school board did not know they were being given.

I am very sorry that this letter did not get to the parents in this state before their children started testing this week. The parents of about 150 Minnesota students, without even knowing all the facts that I just mentioned, chose to not allow their 3rd and 5th grade children to take the MCA's or offered to have them take a nationally norm-referenced test such as an Iowa Test of Basic Skills or a California Achievement Test instead.

Our children have been practice testing for weeks to take these tests. Teachers have to give up their valuable class time. Ask yourself this question. If these tests are an accurate measurement of what my child has learned up to this time, why do they have to practice test in reading and math for two weeks before they can take it?

Renee T. Doyle,
President
Maple River Education Coalition

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