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/


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