Private educators will rally outside the State House at noon on Thursday to oppose a bill that would impose a test of the public school curriculum on every private school in Massachusetts. Students across the Commonwealth are making banners for their private schools as they prepare to defend three and a half centuries of academic freedom.

     Rep. Harold Lane, Jr., House Chairman of the Joint Education Committee, sponsored House Bill 1886, which says, “The school committee shall administer the statewide assessment tests in private schools in their school district.” H1886 would mandate the new Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), which is designed to test whether students have mastered the new public school curriculum.

     The MCAS is Massachusetts’ expensive, experimental, and controversial new way of finding out whether the public schools are actually accomplishing what the citizens are paying for. Massachusetts has committed two billion dollars over seven years to fix public education. According to the department of education, 53 cents of every new tax dollar goes to fund “Ed. Reform,” as it is known. At least ten million of these dollars have been devoted to preparing the MCAS. The cost of administering it will be staggering, since the test requires three class sessions per subject, and there are seven subjects to be tested. This spring, students in the 4th, 8th, and 10th grades devoted ninety minutes to a try-out of just one subject. Eventually, public school students can expect to spend a full week of school on the MCAS. Private educators would rather teach their own curriculum for that week than take a test on the public school curriculum.