Given the authority-assuming decision, or perhaps arbitrary, of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and its Commissioner Jeffrey Riley (I’ll let you be the judge, as to which, if not both) about their sense of the need to raise MCAS requirements for future public school graduates, I am reminded of the notable imperative, apparently for all things administrative, from President Bush, the younger: “Make the pie higher!”

Indeed. In light of DESE’s present position on the MCAS, a question is suggested: Hasn’t this half-baked MCAS pie been overworked in almost every corner of the commonwealth over the last 30 years, save those occupied by the commonwealth’s bovines, who could easily remedy this relentless need to make the pie higher?

I am also reminded that the Education Reform Act of 1993 originated when the Supreme Judicial Court unanimously declared that education in this commonwealth was funded neither “fairly or equitably.” The subsequent outcomes of this decision, given that the SJC made no recommendations toward remediation of this condition, were left up to the Legislature.

The only real take-aways from that? School superintendents gained more authority, there is a still-evolving statewide magical funding formula, charter schools and MCAS! I also recall that, in an analysis of possible determinants toward MCAS scores in the early days of this testing affliction, the Donahue Institute at UMass found that 86% of the variance of statewide MCAS scores could be attributed to socioeconomic factors.

Fast forward? Not really. Sen. Jo Comerford and other local state legislators have raised voice against DESE’s current MCAS bar raising, acknowledging that those most at-risk to be harmed by this decision continue to be those already socially, ethnically, racially, linguistically and economically disadvantaged. I urge us all to support them in all their efforts toward reversing this decision; indeed, toward actually eliminating the MCAS all together.

Do Riley and DESE really believe that pushing up MCAS scores will lead to improved learning — let alone better social or emotional functioning — for any of this commonwealth’s students?

Please accept this letter as one of warning for all of those, upon whom this pie-in-the-sky could eventually fall.

Jay Killough

Shutesbury

The writer is a school psychologist.