Finally, after months of delay and only through the intervention of the governor's office, a testing specialist reviewed the test and discovered scoring errors. These errors kept hundreds of students from graduating and forced hundreds of others into summer school. National Computer Systems apologized and offered to stage a make-up graduation ceremony for all those who missed the real one. At seventeen hours, the MCAS is longer than the Massachusetts Bar exam. Let us consider Bougas' statement, consider what the Standardistos have done to our careers.
Silence is our enemy.
Presently, speaking out has its hazards. Police came to his house, handcuffed him, and locked him up in jail overnight. In Birmingham, Alabama, Steve Orel, an adult ed instructor, was fired for questioning why 522 students were pushed out of city schools threatened by state take over because of low test scores shortly before the Stanford 9 tests were to be administered. Testing experts note that the easiest way for a school to raise its averages is to make sure the lowest scoring students don't take the test. Kids who are kicked out of school aren't there to take the test.