High Standards, Not High Stakes
The MTA is organizing with members, parents, community members and students to get a ballot question replacing the MCAS graduation requirement before voters in November.
Ballot campaign surges ahead
Education and racial justice organizations showing support
With campaign endorsements coming in and news that signature gathering for the petition initiative has far exceeded goals, the MTA Board of Directors over the weekend embraced plans to bring a ballot question to replace the MCAS high school graduation requirement to voters in November.
The MTA board celebrated the news that the required second round of signature gathering for the ballot initiative process far surpassed its goal of collecting 20,000 names to reach the required 12,000 names of certified, registered voters for advancing the question. Educators, parents and public education advocates supporting the campaign turned in more than 32,500 signatures from voters across the state.
Important education and racial justice organizations have recently stated their support for the ballot initiative. The Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment, and the Massachusetts School Counselors Association have all endorsed the campaign to end the use of high-stakes testing as a state requirement for graduation, replacing it with local certification that a student has completed coursework that meets all of the state’s academic standards.
This past week, New York, a state with a very strong public education system, became the most recent and most prominent state to decouple standardized testing from a high-school diploma, instead proposing the use of more authentic and educator-driven assessment methods. New York’s move toward a fairer and more equitable system for a graduation requirement leaves Massachusetts in the company of Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, New Jersey and Wyoming as the last remaining states to use a standardized test as a prerequisite to a diploma. The ballot question will not affect the continued use of the MCAS as a diagnostic tool.
An Outlier in High-Stakes Testing
Massachusetts is one of the few states in the country to require a high school graduation test
Massachusetts likes to brag that it has an exceptional national reputation for public education, but in one aspect, it’s a straggling outlier. The state requires a high school graduation test for a diploma, one of just eight that continue to do so.
Massachusetts, which administers the MCAS-based graduation test in the 10th grade, is joined by Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, New Jersey and Wyoming.
Read our previous coverage in the fall edition of MTA Today about why so many other states have dropped this testing requirement over the past several decades.
Reaching the 2024 Ballot
How Do We Get There?
All ballot initiatives follow a specific process in Massachusetts. The MTA has already cleared several steps in getting a ballot question before voters to end the high school graduation requirement of the MCAS, but we have several more to go.
What does the initiative petition say?
The proposed law would eliminate the requirement that a student pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests (or other statewide or district-wide assessments) in mathematics, science and technology, and English in order to receive a high school diploma. Instead, in order for a student to receive a high school diploma, the proposed law would require the student to complete coursework certified by the student’s district as demonstrating mastery of the competencies contained in the state academic standards in mathematics, science and technology, and English, as well as any additional areas determined by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Educators have long called for an end to the punishing high-stakes testing regime
High-stakes testing and the associated accountability measures have undermined our public education system for far too long.
Massachusetts is only one of eight states in the country that ties its standardized test to graduation. The change in attitudes about exit exams is likely related to research indicating that exit exams don't increase academic achievement.
The current testing system reduces time to teach, narrows the curriculum, adds stress and reduces creativity and misuses education dollars. The punitive aspects of the MCAS regime are especially detrimental to students with Individualized Education Plans, students learning English as a second language, students of color and and students from groups that have been historically marginalized from an equitable and supportive education.
MCAS incentivize schools to 'teach to the test, narrow the curriculum'
When MTA member Jack Schneider spoke on the impact of the MCAS exams at a State House press conference in December 2022, he teared up at the emotional toll the standardized test has had on his own child.
The high-stakes nature of the test, said Schneider, a professor of education at UMass Lowell who studies the impact of MCAS and school rankings, "incentivizes schools to game the system, to do things like teach to the test and narrow the curriculum."
The high-stakes test has been a hot-button issue for students and educators since the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, which created the MCAS accountability system.
“This is part of a broken system that has been going on far too long.”
MTA Vice President Deb McCarthy