BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Several Massachusetts lawmakers have filed legislation that would create a three-year moratorium on the administration of MCAS exams, due to the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic for students across the state.
Instead of funding Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing, the legislation also proposes the money go to prevent teacher layoffs or be sent to communities hit hardest by the pandemic.
Attleboro State Rep. Jim Hawkins said with the sudden closure of schools in March, and the uncertainty surrounding the return to education in the Fall, he believes students have enough on their plates.
"It seems simple enough to take MCAS out of the equation," Rep Hawkins told WBZ NewsRadio.
"In the Governor's budget, it was somewhere between $33 million and $34 million, that goes to a corporate test maker," said Rep. Hawkins. "If we were to continue with this, that money that should be going to low income schools communities of color, communities that got hurt really bad during the COVID crisis, that money should be going there, not to some corporation."
The bill would establish a moratorium “on using any standardized tests to make high-stakes decisions about students, educators, schools, and districts.”
WBZ NewsRadio's Kim Tunnicliffe reports:
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