Beginning in 2025, a civics MCAS will be required statewide for eighth grade students. Westford Public Schools has officially introduced civics MCAS at the middle school level after years of developing a test to further comply with Massachusetts’s expanding civics education requirements.
The introduction of the MCAS is a big milestone, as the test has been carefully developed by the state for the last five years. After four years of voluntary testing across the state in order to select the best possible questions for the official exam, testing will be required this year for one last piece of data before officially requiring the exam in 2025. This year’s mandatory testing will not officially impact students academically, but will rather be used as a data point in further finalizing the exam.
In 2018, the state required that all eighth grade students take civics. After creating a detailed outline for the curriculum, the Westford Eighth Grade Civics Team expanded upon the outline to create a full year curriculum. Westford Social Studies Department Head, Adam Ingano, is extremely pleased with the curriculum that was put together.
“I would argue that I have the best eighth grade civics team in the entire commonwealth,” Ingano said. “They developed that curriculum from the ground up when absolutely nothing was available.”
In the five years since 2018, this new curriculum now includes civics projects at the middle and high school levels, along with the development of the civics MCAS.
Ingano is a proponent of the introduction of civics MCAS in Westford because he hopes it can help further improve civics education across the district. With civics being a newer curriculum, he is looking forward to seeing how the results of the MCAS can help improve the overall civics education in Westford.
“I am all for the civics MCAS,” Ingano said. “You cannot improve what you do not measure. If we claim that we are going to make the curriculum better, how do we know how to do so if we do not have an assessment
Although there has been an expansion and continued development of the civics education in Westford, at this time there will be no civics MCAS at the high school level. However, this may change in the future, according to Ingano, if the state continues to expand the civics requirements.
