Massachusetts voters supported ending the requirement for students to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System to graduate high school. The majority voted yes on Ballot Question 2, which would remove MCAS as a graduation requirement. Statewide, 59 percent voted yes and 41 percent opposed.
In Cambridge, approval hit 56 percent in the Election Commission’s unofficial count, and 44.4 percent opposed. Somerville figures were more robust than at the statewide level, with the city’s Elections Commission releasing unofficial results of 63 percent in favor and 37 percent opposed.
Massachusetts is one of only nine states that require students to take an exit exam to graduate. Since 2003, 10th-grade students across Massachusetts have had to pass MCAS tests in English-language arts, math and science to graduate. If they don’t pass the test in 10th grade, they have two more chances to take it in 11th grade and two more chances to take it in 12th grade.
Under the passed measure, students will still take the tests, but won’t have to pass them to graduate. Each year, about 700 Massachusetts seniors who have fulfilled all other academic requirements do not graduate because they have not passed the MCAS. Of those students, 85 percent have disabilities or are English-language learners.
In Somerville, of the 311 students who were in 12th grade at Somerville High School in the 2022-2023 school year, 85.9 percent graduated, while 4.2 percent remained in school and 1.9 percent were nongrad completers: They earned certificates of attainment that are given to students who meet all local graduation requirements but do not pass the MCAS, and to students who reach the maximum school age of 22 but have not graduated. Students who once earned certificates of attainment instead of diplomas will simply get diplomas.
In Cambridge, the graduation rate is slightly higher, coming at 91.5 percent for the 485-person class in 2022-2023. From 2013 to 2024, Cambridge issued 37 certificates of attainment. Of those, 21 went to Black students, seven to Hispanic students, six to Asian students and three to white students.
Yes on 2 advocates suggest that the structure around retaking the test means students who fail the first time will be taken away from individualized learning and other activities to improve test-taking skills before their next test.
“Without MCAS to graduate, students will be able to pursue their interests, rather than going to a class every day to learn how to take a test,” said Kathy Greeley, a former Cambridge Public Schools teacher who wrote about her experience with the harms of education standardization in her memoir “Testing Education.”
But this alternative could present a different problem.
“I think that it will mean there will be less focus on helping the students who need it the most, who are not passing their MCAS on the first try,” Nolan said. “There will be no effort to help them, and they are overwhelmingly part of those marginalized groups.”
Andrew King, who ran for a seat on the Cambridge School Committee in 2023 and is a member of the Our Revolution Cambridge Education Committee – which pushed for Yes on 2 – is optimistic about how schools could change for the better.
“I think it opens up a lot of doors to reimagine public education in our state, and I sure hope it brings back some of the innovation and creativity in curriculum and in teaching.”
Yes on 2
The movement to pass the measure was backed by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the largest teachers union in the state.
Proponents of Yes on 2, who include U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, believe that removing the graduation requirement would reduce the stress placed on students by high-stakes testing and allow for more comprehensive evaluations of students by their teachers.
“Parents, educators and students have been saying for 25 years that one single standardized test shouldn’t determine a child’s future, and that it was a poor measure of a child’s intelligence or a school’s quality,” said King, a graduate of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.
Proponents of the question don’t believe it will change the standard of education in Massachusetts, among the highest in the country. Greeley said that’s because “teachers are assessing kids every day.”
“Teachers are doing this constantly, and I think it’s really important that we have the ability to assess students multiple ways, not just through a standardized test,” Greeley said.
King attended Cambridge’s Graham & Parks School, where Greeley was a teacher. When he graduated from high school in 2004, his class was the second with the MCAS requirement. He believes the MCAS has “totally transformed” learning, especially for “low-income students of color who are being directly affected by having to take tests multiple times and being held back.”
“Someone said to me, ‘Why would any person with intelligence and any modicum of creativity want to be a teacher these days?’” Greeley said.
No on 2
On the other hand, the No on 2 movement, which is supported by Gov. Maura Healey, believed that removing the graduation requirement will harm students – including just the ones Yes on 2 voters thought removing the MCAS would support: low-income students, English language learners and students with disabilities or special needs.
Patty Nolan, who was one of the four Cambridge city councillors opposing a motion in support of Question 2, said that she believes that without statewide standards, schools will start to slip, especially in lower-income districts serving larger proportions of students of color.
“The districts that are more likely to have the higher standards and keep them are the ones where there’s a higher percentage of middle- and upper-class students, not the ones with predominantly low-income students of color,” Nolan said. “They are the ones that will be most hurt by this.”
The only other requirements to get a high school diploma in Massachusetts are a civics course and physical education. Students also have to meet their local district’s requirements, but those vary across the state, Nolan said.
“Even if it’s not a standardized test like MCAS, most states have some statewide requirements, like three years of a foreign language, four years of English, three years of math – but Massachusetts doesn’t have any of that,” Nolan said.
This post was updated Nov. 8, 2024, to correct statewide figures.
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