MCAS

Reform based on pre-2011 MCAS draws support from Pioneer Institute

Reform based on pre-2011 MCAS draws support from Pioneer Institute

Kara Bettis

BOSTON – As Massachusetts education officials gear up to decide next month whether to adopt the national PARCC exam to assess academic achievement, the Boston-based Pioneer Institute on Tuesday released a study critical of PARCC that suggests creating a new set of state examinations based on the original MCAS exam.

The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which guides policy, including testing standards, for public schools in the state, is considering several alternatives. These range from continuing to use the nearly two-decade-old Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, known as MCAS, adopting PARCC, which stands for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or creating a new state assessment system. The third option was suggested recently by Education Secretary Jim Peyser, a former head of the Pioneer Institute, and Mitchell Chester, the public schools commissioner.

Wisconsin convent says prayer has gone on nonstop since 1878
Faith

Wisconsin convent says prayer has gone on nonstop since 1878

Associated Press

LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) — Flooding, snowstorms, a flu outbreak, even a fire — any of those might have slowed a group of Wisconsin nuns who say none of it has kept their order from praying nonstop for hundreds of thousands of people over the last 137 years.

The La Crosse-based Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration claim to have been praying night and day for the ill and the suffering longer than anyone in the United States — since 11 a.m. on Aug. 1, 1878.

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