Thanks, and moral support is appreciated. MCAS is very controversial in MA. None of the major papers have yet called into question the test itself. Now, the DOE apparently is saying that they stand behind every question.
I believe it might help if the MA DOE MCAS group, headed by Jeff Nellhaus hears from concerned mathematicians about problems in the test (if you truly think there are problems). There is a feedback page at the bottom of the DOE MCAS page. One reporter told me, "I don't understand this. This is mathematics. There are clear-cut right and wrong answers aren't there?" I told him I thought there were. I truly hope that DOE will call for an outside review. Perhaps the problems I flagged were caused by a failure by the testing company to remove flawed questions. Who knows? An outside review of the questions is needed. This test is scaled with hidden "anchor" questions offered on every test. They make up about 20% of the questions asked. I was flagging about 1/10 to 1/8 of the open questions as being flawed. A few flawed "anchor" questions used to scale one year's test could pose real problems. If you want to comment directly to DOE, here is the link: http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/ ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ =================================================================
