TWENTY-ONE YEARS after the state began requiring students to pass the 10th grade MCAS exam to graduate from high school, the well-formed battle lines pitting supporters against opponents of the high-stakes test show little sign of breaking down, with the prospects of a high-profile ballot showdown now looming over the debate.
The two sides made their case on Monday before a special legislative committee that is charged with reviewing a ballot question being advanced by the Massachusetts Teachers Association that would remove the 10th grade graduation requirement from Massachusetts high schools
The ballot questions proponents argued that the graduation test has narrowed the curriculum of schools and created particular stress for minority students, English learners, and other groups who struggle to pass the exam. But skeptical legislators repeatedly asked them what would ensure that all students are being measured against, and held to, a common standard if the MCAS requirement were scrapped.
“We are united in demanding an end to the punitive high-stakes testing regimen that distorts student learning in every school by creating a test and punish culture that undermines the professional expertise of our educators and, year after year, harms hundreds of students who are denied diplomas simply for not passing some portion of a standardized test,” said MTA president Max Page in testimony before the eight-member committee.
Page and others supporting the ballot question said districts will still have to adhere to state curriculum standards that outline material to be covered in different subjects at each grade level.
But lawmakers and those testifying against ending the graduation requirement suggested there could be different ways of applying those standards in each district. They pointed to the ballot question language, which replaces the 10th grade test in math, English, and science as graduation requirements with “satisfactorily completing coursework that has been certified by the student’s district” as showing mastery of skills and knowledge in the state standards.
Ed Lambert, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, said a high diploma would become “meaningless” without the graduation test. “If you don’t have uniformity in how you assess something like achievement, then you don’t have a single standard,” he said. “Only a common assessment can ensure that.”
Sen. Cindy Friedman, an Arlington Democrat and the co-chair of the legislative committee, repeatedly echoed that point. “How do we ensure that our kids, no matter where they live, are getting the education that they need?” she asked. “I don’t have a dog around the MCAS. I don’t particularly care, except it is the way we assess today what’s going on in this town versus what’s going on in this town. This ballot question will take all of that away.”
Former state education secretary Paul Reville, who was part of the effort behind the 1993 Education Reform Act, which ushered in state standards and accountability, including the MCAS system, along with a huge infusion of new state education funding to districts, said “having some form of consequences associated with standards makes them matter.”
Massachusetts students took standardized tests before the 1993 law, but when the results came out showing different communities and different student subgroups performing at different levels, “people just shrugged their shoulders,” said Reville. “Performance didn’t actually matter.”
If the ballot question goes forward and passes, it would not remove standardized testing from Massachusetts schools. Federal law requires testing of students in grades 3-8 and once in high school.
But state Rep. Kenneth Gordon, a Bedford Democrat, said he worried that without the 10th grade test serving as a graduation requirement, students would not be motivated to do as well on the test, making it difficult to compare districts and know which ones need more help. “I’ve taken pass/fail classes in school, and I’ve taken graded classes, and I’ve put in a different level of effort, to be honest,” he said.
Kirsten Frazier, an English language arts teacher in Worcester who testified in favor of the ballot question, pushed back against his premise. “You’d be surprised,” she said. “Students, if it’s not something that’s going to hold their life in the balance, they actually put more effort in and they show you more authentic skills.”
Jeff Howard, a social psychologist and former member of the state Board of Elementary Secondary Education, took issue with that. “Don’t we all know if you have an assessment that requires that you pass it, and there’s consequences if you don’t, you tend to pay more attention to it,” he said.
While MCAS was first authorized as part of the 1993 reform law, it was not until a decade later, in 2003, that the high-stakes graduation requirement took effect.
According to figures presented at Monday’s hearing by Rob Curtin, an associate commissioner in the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, of the roughly 71,000 Massachusetts students who were in 12th grade in 2019, 2,752 failed to pass the MCAS after four tries. Three quarters of these students, however, also failed to meet local district graduation requirements, leaving just 702, or less than 1 percent, who did not graduate because they failed to pass MCAS.
The special legislative committee, co-chaired by Friedman and Rep. Alice Peisch of Wellesley, will hold hearings in the coming weeks on all 10 ballot questions that have been certified and gathered the required 74,574 initial signatures.
The House and Senate have until May 1 to pass any of the questions into law. If they don’t take action, proponents must then gather a further 14,429 signatures by mid June for the questions to go on the ballot.
In some cases in the past, proponents and lawmakers have struck compromise agreements on language that is then approved by the Legislature, which avoids a ballot fight.
Asked before the hearing whether the MTA was open to such discussions, Page said the union is always willing to talk.
“We’re always happy to listen and glad to talk to anyone in the building behind us,” he said, standing in front of the State House, where proponents had just finished a press conference. But it wasn’t clear that the union was interested in budging far from its starting point. “At the end of the day, what we need to win is [that] there is no longer MCAS as the gatekeeper for high school diplomas,” Page said.
Stephen Zrike, superintendent of the Salem schools, was the one person who testified at the hearing who seemed to offer something resembling a compromise – an idea for modifying the current requirements without eliminating the graduation requirement.
Zrike said it’s “essential” to maintain a common assessment in the state and said he favors maintaining the graduation test for most students. But pointing to the five to seven years it can take for English learners to master a new language and to the challenge some special needs students will face ever being able to pass MCAS, Zrike said the state should consider allowing some students in those two categories to satisfy an alternate graduation requirement.
Of the 702 students who did not graduate in 2019 because of MCAS, 281 were English language learners and 402 were students with disabilities.
Over the weekend, the Healey administration showed its hand on the issue, with Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler telling WBZ-TV’s Jon Keller that he and Gov. Maura Healey oppose ending the MCAS graduation test. “That question, if it passes, would deliver us to a place of no standard — essentially, 351 different standards for high school graduation, Tutwiler said. “I don’t believe that is the direction to go. The governor does not believe that is the direction to go.”
In January, a ballot committee formed to oppose the MCAS ballot question. The group is likely to get support from business leaders and organizations, raising the specter of millions of dollars being spent on each side, as happened with a 2016 ballot question over charter school expansion.
As for how much money the MTA would be willing to commit to a ballot campaign to end the MCAS graduation requirement, Page wouldn’t put a number on it, but suggested the union would be ready to spend big.
“All I’ll say is that the MTA sets its top priorities,” he said. “This is one of them, clearly, and that when we set our mind to something that we know is good for students and educators, we’re prepared to put the human resources and the financial resources to win it.”