Let s take a moment and think about food insecurity: How is it different from hunger? Why does it matter?
Food insecurity, according to the USDA, is “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.” Essentially, food insecurity is the inability of a household, family or individual to adequately access a diet that meets their needs for both caloric intake and nutritional value.
Hunger, on the other hand, is a “physiological condition that may result from food insecurity” resulting in “discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation.
Although food insecurity does not always result in hunger, there are several other chronic health conditions that it is also associated with. These include nutrient deficiency, poor oral health, birth defects and cognitive issues in children, depression, diabetes and hypertension. It is therefore imperative for us as a community to understand and address the u
Teachers unions and some lawmakers have pushed Massachusetts to scrap a standardized testing requirement in a pandemic-impacted school year, but the state and some advocacy groups still want public schools to administer tests this year.
Preparing for and administering the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exam, opponents fear, would take away learning time that is especially scarce due to the pandemic. Moreover, some question the ability of standardized testing to measure student performance, since test results are often shown to correlate strongly with race and family income, among other social factors.
MCAS supporters, however, claim the difficult year makes the test particularly important for measuring whether students have fallen behind. Information gathered from testing, they say, would help parents see how their children are doing and allow the state to identify where additional resources might be needed.
It was canceled last year but this spring students are set to take the MCAS. This year’s test, however, comes with some changes.
From a story reported on by WWLP/22 News, one of the major changes this year takes away the stakes. No schools will receive an “underperforming” standing from this spring’s test.
Merrie Najimy, President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said, “We are in a crisis and the most important thing in this moment is to tend to our students and our own creative efforts to make pandemic education successful.”
It’s what the MTA is calling “meeting part way.” The organization wanted the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, to be canceled this year.
MCAS needed to evaluate learning loss during COVID pandemic, Massachusetts education officials say
Updated Jan 05, 2021;
Education officials in Massachusetts say Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System testing is necessary during the pandemic to analyze learning loss and growing achievement gaps.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on Tuesday announced that this year’s MCAS would have flexibilities for districts, including a shorter test for students in grades 3-8 and a modified competency determination for the class of 2021. Additionally, DESE Commissioner Jeffrey Riley will not name any new schools or districts as underperforming or chronically underperforming.
“Even though the results from this year’s tests will not be used to declare any school or district as underperforming, they will provide critical diagnostic information for educators, parents, schools and districts,” Massachusetts Secretary of Education James Peyser said in a phone intervi