We strongly urge Cambridge voters to vote yes on ballot Question 2 in this November election to replace the harmful and unfair MCAS graduation requirement and instead require that districts certify that students have satisfactorily completed their coursework, showing mastery of our rigorous and world-class state standards, to graduate. For the past 20 years, parents, educators and students have been saying the same thing: A single, one-size-fits-all standardized test should not determine a child’s future.
Opponents of Question 2 claim it will eliminate standards and accountability for our schools. This is false. Massachusetts has had world-class, comprehensive K-12 educational standards since the passage of the 1993 Ed Reform Act, standards widely recognized as some of the most rigorous in the nation. Our curriculum frameworks and standards are deeply embedded throughout our education system. MCAS tests are not state standards. They are a limited assessment tool that addresses only a small portion of the broader standards. The MCAS measures test-taking skills, rather than providing a holistic assessment of a student’s readiness to graduate. It should also be noted that voting yes on Question 2 would not eliminate MCAS testing, just the graduation requirement. MCAS would still be administered, but the test score would be reduced to one of many data points that can be used in assessing a student’s likelihood of success after high school.
Voting Yes on 2 will make our public education system better for teachers and students. The reality is that the MCAS graduation requirement undermines our high standards by narrowing the curriculum and forcing teachers to focus on dull, drill-and-kill test prep. Putting crushing pressure on educators to teach to the test means students lose access to a holistic curriculum that includes history, music and art, project-based learning, critical thinking and real-world problem-solving skills needed for the 21st century.
Since its inception, the punitive MCAS graduation requirement has prevented thousands of students from graduating, including those who don’t pass the test and those who drop out due to test-induced pressures. This includes denying diplomas to students who have completed all their coursework and other graduation requirements. In 2019 alone, the MCAS prevented more than 1,200 students from getting a high school diploma. These students had met all other graduation requirements.
Despite the rosy promises of its proponents, for 20 years this test-and-punish accountability system has failed its purported goals to close achievement gaps for low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities and multilingual learners. Our state’s National Assessment of Educational Progress scores continue to show some of the largest gaps. Instead, the MCAS has hurt students and perpetuated inequality in our schools by race, class, language and disability.
A recent study by the Annenberg Institute found that, while most students pass eventually, 85 percent of those who never pass are English-language learners and students with disabilities. According to an analysis by Northeastern University professor emeritus Louis Kruger, during the three-year suspension of the MCAS graduation requirement during the pandemic, there were substantial increases in graduation rates for underserved students, including a 8.5 percent increase for English-learners. When the graduation requirement was reinstated in 2023, the graduation rate for English-learners declined by almost 6 percentage points, the largest decline ever recorded for that cohort using the current method of calculating grad rates.
MCAS scores are a poor measure of child intelligence, teacher effectiveness and school quality. Research shows that MCAS scores most closely reflect out-of-school factors such as family income and education level rather than student achievement or school quality. Our focus should be on identifying and providing the resources that we already know are needed at struggling schools serving large concentrations of disadvantaged students. We should support more holistic, community-driven assessment models such as that used by the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment, which focuses on more meaningful school-quality measures of student and family engagement, student achievement and school climate.
These are all reasons why Massachusetts is one of only eight states left using a standardized test to determine graduation and why so many Massachusetts education stakeholders including teacher and parent groups, civil rights groups, community organizations and elected officials support Question 2. This list includes but is not limited to: the Massachusetts Teachers Association, American Federation of Teachers MA, Massachusetts Association of School Committees, Massachusetts Association of School Counselors, the Urban League, Chinese Progressive Association, Citizens for Public Schools and Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance. Cambridge elected officials at all levels support Question 2, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, state Sen. Pat Jehlen and state Reps. Mike Connolly, Marjorie Decker and Steven Owens.
Please vote yes on Question 2 this November.
Andrew King for the Our Revolution Cambridge Education Committee
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If the readers knew how easy the MCAS tests are, there would be no cogent discussion on this issue.
If people were educated in science and believed science, there would be no discussion on this issue. The MCAS is designed for district accountability. Period.
Other uses were tacked on later, and are misuses of the test.
A test cannot do both, at least not well.
Parents will paper over failings of virtually anything which happens in schools if the measure impact their kids’ futures. Conversely, schools will paper over anything used to hold kids accountable if the same measures impact the schools. You put the same test to hold both parents and schools accountable, and you’ll have collusion to, at the very least game the system, if not cheat outright.
At the same time, what ought to be measured is so very different. Exit exams test a broad diversity of skills, and have flexibility for students. District accountability exams are, by design, a lot more narrow.
Types of tolerable error differ too. Exit exams need to be accurate on a per-student basis (if we flunk an individual student incorrectly, the test has failed). District accountability exams need to only be correct on average.
The majority of funders against this measure are people from the business community who know next to nothing about schools or educational measurement. The majority of supporters of this abuse of the MCAS have never interacted with the groups of kids whose lives would be impacted by not having a diploma, and have only the most abstract sense of what life looks like at the fringes.
As one who is heavily educated in science and believes in it, I just want to add that a large portion of sophomores pass MCAS on the first try. It is not a difficult challenging test by any measure.