The Boston Globe Editorial Board
Preserve the MCAS as a graduation requirement
Schools in Massachusetts are the envy of the nation. But Question 2 threatens one of the foundations of the state’s success.
High school diplomas in Massachusetts, a state official told the Globe in 1986, had become virtually “meaningless.” Not only did different school districts set different degree requirements, but even when they offered similarly titled classes, like Algebra I, the material those courses included often varied drastically. As a result, employers or colleges had no way of knowing the level of achievement that a diploma from a Massachusetts high school really represented.
Students, though, paid the highest price for this patchwork system. Urban districts, especially, failed to hold their students to high standards, waving them along to a diploma without actually preparing them for adulthood.
State regulations were minimal: All schools had to provide was four years of gym and one year of American history and civics. Even the quality of that one year of history varied significantly, a state report found, with some classes involving essays, primary source research, and critical thinking, while others “clearly presented history as a list of names, dates and places.”
As voters weigh Question 2, the ballot measure that would remove the state’s only high school graduation requirement, it’s useful to remember the historical inequities that the requirement was designed to fix. The high school graduation requirement, which stems from a 1993 education reform law and went into effect in 2003, created for the first time a uniform, minimal baseline. All public schools must teach students at least the material required to pass the 10th-grade version of the math, science, and English MCAS exams.
It’s hard to argue with the results of the 1993 reforms, which also included curriculum guidelines and more state funding for districts to enable them to meet the new standards: Massachusetts schools are now the envy of the nation.
By removing the MCAS requirement — without replacing it with any alternative statewide method of ensuring diplomas remain meaningful — Question 2 would put that progress at risk. Education is the core strength of Massachusetts — our workforce, our government, our future — and that is not a risk we can afford to take. The Globe strongly endorses a no vote on Nov. 5.
The campaign in favor of Question 2, spearheaded by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, argues that the exam is a “high-stakes” test that is too stressful for students. It also asserts that not all students are good test takers and that too many are denied a degree simply because they can’t pass a one-size-fits-all test, even if they complete all their other coursework.
There’s no doubt that tests — the MCAS, a math quiz, the dreaded pull-up test in gym class — are stressful for some students. Going to school in the first place is stressful for some students. That’s a reason to help those students — not to avoid giving tests. Bluntly, there is no way to have any standards at all without causing some level of stress for some students.
Meanwhile, some skepticism is warranted about the phrase “high-stakes.” Now, the test is certainly high stakes for schools because it can cast an uncomfortable spotlight on their performance. This year’s scores, for instance, show that schools continue to struggle to catch up after the COVID-19 pandemic — and put pressure on districts to close that gap.
But it’s hard to credit the idea that the test is “high-stakes” for students, any more so than other parts of their academic experience that may figure into whether they graduate. The 10th-grade exam is not, contrary to what the MTA’s leadership has insinuated, a one-time test. Although most students pass on their first try and can then forget about it, students who struggle can retake the test four times in high school and can even continue to retake it after leaving school. The state also makes accommodations for students with disabilities and offers the math and science portions in Spanish.
What the proponents also typically fail to mention is that the MCAS is not the only way to demonstrate proficiency, and there are already alternative pathways in place to approve diplomas for the students the MTA purports to worry about — those who have mastered the material but are simply not good test takers. The system is not, in fact, one size fits all. Students can also complete a portfolio of work or appeal to the state based on a comparison of their grades with their peers’.
The accusation that the test is high stakes also appears to be part of an effort to lump the MCAS in with other exams like the SAT. But the tests are fundamentally different: the SAT is supposed to have predictive value, giving colleges an idea of whether applicants will thrive in higher education. The MCAS makes no such bold claims; it only assesses whether students have learned required material.
In their effort to portray the test as some serious hardship for students, its opponents have also mischaracterized its impact. Last year the union asserted that more than 50,000 students had been deprived of a high school degree because of the MCAS. As this editorial board has reported, the actual number of students who failed to graduate high school solely because of the MCAS was about 700, or less than 1 percent of the class, in 2019, just before the pandemic. (The union subsequently stopped using the faulty numbers.)
The numbers also don’t bear out another accusation sometimes voiced by test opponents — that it discriminates against English language learners. Numbers provided by Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to Matt Hills, the vice chair of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, who shared them with the Globe, suggest that in the same 2019 cohort, fewer than 20 students in the state — out of the roughly 70,000 seniors enrolled in Massachusetts high schools that year, according to DESE — failed because of a language barrier.
To opponents of the test, even those infinitesimal numbers are too high. But if students cannot pass the MCAS after five tries, or demonstrate proficiency through either of the two available workarounds, it’s reasonable to conclude they simply have not learned the material a high school degree is supposed to include.
The opposition also seems to be hoping to tap into dissatisfaction with the MCAS more generally. MCAS is a lot more than a graduation requirement. Versions of the test are also given in lower grades. Those exams have nothing to do with high school graduation and are instead intended to hold schools accountable for keeping their students on track. Those tests have value because they provide important data about trendlines for policy makers, help identify both problems and successes, and make it easier for the state and districts to direct resources and energy where they’re most needed. But many critics assert they waste time and encourage teachers to “teach to the test.”
Voters should realize, though, that the MCAS test itself isn’t on the ballot. Those tests are required by federal law. MCAS tests — and the attendant evils they’re said to cause — are not going away, no matter how Massachusetts votes on Question 2 in November.
What would go away instead is a fundamental part of the state’s guarantee to all students: that no matter their background, no matter the wealth of their community, their school has to provide at least a minimal basic education encompassing math, science, and English.
The MCAS graduation requirement — and the backup options for students who don’t pass the exam — exists to hold schools to that promise. Massachusetts has seen the inequality that results when every district simply makes its own rules — and we should not want to go back.
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