Speak Out
Former teacher speaks out against charter schools and MCAS
Dick Mackey Westminster

Let’s hope that it doesn’t take the Department of Education (DOE) as long to realize charter schools are about as useless as MCAS have been. As he nears retirement our esteemed Commission of Education David Driscoll has finally come out of the closet and informed the public a myriad of problems exist with MCAS, not that he and the DOE haven’t heard this from the public in the past. Why wasn’t this “revelation” made years ago? Did the DOE just make this “discovery”? Believe me, if so, their members weren’t in the “top groups” when they went to school. Every stu- dent in this state would have received a better educa- tion over the past ten years and our most advanced stu- dents would be much further ahead than they presently are if MCAS had never been “invented.” I truly feel sorry for the students who have had to undergo undue pressure while taking these tests, especially those who struggle in the classroom. Mr. Driscoll, with all his ingenuity, now feels that only college-level students should take a more rigorous MCAS type test so they will be prepared to enter our state college system. These college-bound students don’t need this type of test and school funds don’t need to be reduced any further as a result of these tests anymore than any of us need an extra hole in our head.

Public school teachers are already doing a fine job preparing these students for the day they will take the already well established PSATs, SATs, SAT IIs and ACTs. New tests will only cost the state additional money. The DOE talks about closing the achievement gap, which hasn’t happened and never will. It doesn’t take much math ability to realize the only way to close the achievement gap is to slow down those furthest ahead, something the “experts” have unknowingly been doing for the past decade. It is amazing that in spite of the DOE the upper-level students have done as well as they have. The one thing that the DOE has accomplished with its MCAS program is to waste billions of dollars of the hard working public’s tax dollar.

Now the DOE has decided to open a few more charter schools at the cost of millions of dollars while raping local districts of their funds. The problem in education today is not with local schools, it’s with the DOE and politicians who know little to nothing about educating public school students. Many of these “experts” have never attended a public school but rather independent schools where there aren’t even certification requirements for the teachers. Many of these “experts” wouldn’t last from 8 in the morning until noon if they had to teach in a public school. Many of these “experts” have been kicked out and up from previous positions. Many of the positions they now hold have done nothing more than create useless work for public school administrators and teachers.

Has anyone missed the regional educational centers that used to exist? I don’t think so. As my first principal told his staff at the first faculty meeting I ever attended 45 years ago: “I ask you all to attend some of the meetings at the State Department of Education. While there take very precise notes and listen carefully. When you return from the meetings analyze what you have been told and learned at the state department then in your classrooms do just the opposite of what you were told to do.” It was true then and it’s true today.

MCAS and charter schools have been nothing more than a waste of billions of dollars. If the DOE wants a new charter school let it build one near the DOE. Let the politicians and DOE members attend, learn something about education and then have them all take the 10th grade MCAS. My money says few would pass unless they lowered the standards. The only way public education is going to improve, and it is in much better shape today than the “experts” would make you believe, is when the state returns the control of public schools to local school committees, administrators and teachers. Suffice to say the DOE is lacking in many areas including real-life public school educators with common sense and experience, while being too ingrained with lackeys appointed by politicians. It really is too bad that voters in certain districts turn down school budgets and overrides. The only losers are kids and the value of homes in the district while the DOE continues to force school districts into higher budgets while not funding that which they force upon the public.