This requires adjustments on the part of teachers, administrators, students and parents. The curriculum frameworks, on which MCAS is based, have been in place for at most two years. Aligning curriculum and teaching techniques is a complicated, time-consuming process, which requires extensive staff development opportunities for teaching and support staff. It also requires standards-based curriculum materials, many of which are still in development. The more progress we make in creating this alignment the better the MCAS result will be.
Progress requires hard work over an extended period of time.
We take the position that level one performance is simply not acceptable, and accept the responsibility for reducing the number of students in level one to zero. A student who performs at level one will not have any viable options as an adult. The MCAS standards are very high. Because of this, the average student is likely to score at level 2. While our goal should be to move as many of these students to level 3 as possible, MCAS must provide for an appropriate classification for the student who works hard and accomplishes average results.