Two very different ballot measures in two very different states this year teach the same lesson: Bad ideas on education can come from either side of the partisan divide. In Florida, a referendum asks voters whether they want to change local school board elections from nonpartisan contests to races between candidates identified by party affiliation. Meanwhile, Massachusetts is considering an initiative to remove a
standardized test score requirement for students to receive a high school diploma.
The Florida proposal, supported by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, would override a state constitutional amendment passed in 1998 that nixed party labels in school board elections. Last year, the GOP-majority state legislature approved language repealing that rule; now, voters are being asked to approve it. The argument for sticking Rs and Ds next to the names of would-be board members is that issues related to education in the state have become intensely politicized: Topics such as book bans, mask mandates and gender identity dominate the debate about how children learn. Voters, the referendum’s proponents say, deserve to know the party affiliation of candidates — as a signal of where candidates likely stand on these divisive questions.
And that’s precisely what Mr. DeSantis, who has made “wokeness” in schools a signature issue, hopes to achieve. He has thrown his and his party’s weight behind candidates in manifold local school board races, supporting more than 30 winners in 2022. Of course, Democrats have responded in kind by making their own endorsements, and Mr. DeSantis’s favored candidates fared worse in 2024’s summer elections.
No doubt party affiliation is a relevant aspect of a candidate’s résumé. At the same time, it is information voters can obtain elsewhere. Schools are intended to be places that foster academic achievement in a maximally consensual and apolitical environment. Government policy should operate to encourage that. Remaking ballots to emphasize party politicking in schools pushes us in the wrong direction, however marginally.
What Florida, like all states, needs is a focus on essentials such as catching kids up after covid-19 disruptions, effectively teaching kids to read, tackling absenteeism and more. Parents should be encouraged to vote on these subjects, not on ideological signifiers, and candidates should be encouraged to campaign on them. Attaching party labels to the names of those running creates the opposite incentive.
Far to the north, the Massachusetts ballot initiative calls attention to the right question: how much kids are learning. That’s about the only good thing we can say about it, though. Because its main impact would be to weaken the only statewide standard for assessing the performance of both schools and individual students. If it passes, the referendum would increase the risks that young people graduate high
school less prepared for what comes next.
Today, all but a few exempt Bay State students must pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System as a condition of receiving their high school diplomas. This standard has been in place since 2003. And perhaps not coincidentally, from 2005 to 2011, Massachusetts students placed first in all four major categories of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test sometimes known as “the nation’s report card.” Nonetheless, detractors believe that using the exam as a graduation criterion disadvantages poorer children, disproportionately children of color, because of the strong correlation between test scores and socioeconomic status. They say that these students’ futures depend on getting diplomas, and that they shouldn’t be deprived of the chance to earn one because of a test score alone.
There are more than a few problems with this line of thinking. To start, few students actually are deprived of a chance to earn a diploma because of a test score alone. Nearly 3 percent of students don’t pass the MCAS but also don’t qualify for diplomas because they failed to meet local graduation requirements, such as course credits. Fewer than 1 percent of students — 700 or so per year — leave high school without a diploma.
As in Florida, the significance of the Massachusetts referendum lies in the signals it might send and the lowered expectations it might create. Kids would still have to take the MCAS even if the ballot measure passed, but its diminished importance would likely mean less motivation for students, teachers and schools to put in necessary academic effort. Indeed, the MCAS score requirement likely ends up making learning more equitable, not less, by putting the pressure on districts to meet a common standard. Surely that’s preferable to the possible alternative: lower,
locally determined standards that could inflate graduation rates at the expense of real learning.
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