Teachers’ unions and advocacy groups on Wednesday demanded that state education officials invalidate an MCAS exam after the test contained a now-removed question asking students to write from the perspective of an “openly racist” character in the novel “The Underground Railroad.”
After students raised concerns last week about a section on the 10th-grade English Language Arts exam, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) notified schools that the question would not be scored and should not be included on exams yet to be administered.
However, several groups said Wednesday that the response was insufficient and asked instead for the entire test to be nullified.