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High -stakes testing and the work of English teachers: An in-depth interview study of Massachusetts English teachers' experiences with the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System)
Abstract
Over the past decade, politicians, businesspersons, and educators have pushed for “higher,” “tougher,” and “world-class” standards for K–12 students. This standards movement includes state standardized, curriculum-based tests. Massachusetts recently developed the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). MCAS is considered a high-stakes test because a passing score determines graduation for students, and sanctions and rewards for teachers and schools. The experiences of 16 Massachusetts English teachers in teaching under the MCAS high-stakes testing requirement were explored using a qualitative research method known as in-depth interviewing from a phenomenological perspective (Seidman, 1998). These participants taught a variety of students in a range of Massachusetts public schools. Over the course of three 90-minute interviews, each participant established context through life histories, detailed their current teaching experiences, and made meaning of these experiences. Using an inductive process of analysis, data were reduced and coded; essential features, relationships, and patterns were explored. The findings were organized into three major themes. This study found that teachers narrowed their curriculum, changed instruction, and designed classroom assessments to match the content and skills that MCAS tests. Teachers associated both gains and losses with these changes. Moreover, this high-stakes test both enhanced and undermined their professional identities. MCAS and related professional activities empowered teachers; MCAS also disempowered teachers by imposing policies that controlled curriculum and instruction, threatened sanctions, and damaged reputations. Teachers voiced their socio-political analysis of the theories that underpin this high-stakes testing movement, the motives behind MCAS, and the current state of education. The findings reveal that the line between educational reform and improved education is neither unidirectional nor linear. Rather, it is a complex web of influences, motives, and actions. How policy winds its way into practice depends on the varied contexts in which teachers perceive and experience reform. This study suggests implications for policymakers, politicians, teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. Among other things, it makes a plea to policymakers and legislators to define what they mean by standards, re-examine the narrow content of the test, and include teachers as legitimate participants in making policy decisions that affect them and their students.
Subject Area
Secondary education|Language arts|Teacher education
Recommended Citation
Turner, Cara Livingstone, "High -stakes testing and the work of English teachers: An in-depth interview study of Massachusetts English teachers' experiences with the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System)" (2001). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI3012188.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3012188