Next week, Massachusetts voters will decide whether to drop the MCAS exam as a graduation requirement, the most significant shift in education policy in 30 years.
Currently, graduates must complete local coursework requirements and earn a “competency determination” from the state. Usually, this determination comes from a passing score on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam in the 10th grade. If Question 2 passes, the latter requirement would end, giving local administrators the authority to determine competency.
Question 2 is being pushed by the leadership of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union. They say the MCAS forces educators to teach to the test and hurts disadvantaged students, while the business community argues that ditching the exam will cheapen diplomas and leave employers guessing about graduates’ abilities.
Massachusetts was in the vanguard of the outcomes-based education movement when it established the MCAS. If Question 2 is adopted, it will become an outlier as one of the few states that has no common graduation standard. Local districts will be free to set their own standards, so long as they are informed by state frameworks.
In practice, there are typically only a few hundred students across the state who meet all the local requirements but do not score a passing grade on the MCAS. They amount to less than 1% of all high school seniors and already have alternative — though rarely employed — ways to receive a competency determination.
In Needham, as in much of the state, every student has passed the MCAS exam for at least the past three years. Almost all of them, both statewide and locally, passed on their first attempt. Of last year’s graduating class of 420 students at Needham High School, only four students had to take the math and science portion twice.
Statewide, more than 92% of students pass all sections on their first attempt. The few who do not earn a passing score, which would indicate they are at least partially meeting grade-level expectations, are given four more attempts to pass before graduation day. According to the nonpartisan Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, the “MCAS test isn’t a particularly high bar for graduation.”
Needham Public Schools Superintendent Dan Gutekanst has called the MCAS “an important assessment” and has spoken about how the district uses it to move student learning forward. He acknowledged the exam is imperfect and can be stressful, but said we should not avoid things simply because they are difficult or cause anxiety.
Gutekanst added that regardless of whether Question 2 passes, the Needham Public Schools will continue to offer students an educational program that will prepare them for their next steps after high school.
Pam Greenfield, the mother of a sixth grader at High Rock School, said although other special education parents may feel differently, for her son the exam is an “impediment, not a standard,” due to the stress it causes him.
“The MCAS could be the difference of graduating versus not graduating,” Greenfield said, “which could largely dictate his entire life.”
The Charles River Chamber of Commerce, like other statewide business groups, has come out in opposition to the ballot question. Currently, according to local chamber president Greg Reibman, Massachusetts is a leader nationally in public education. “Question 2 stands to undermine that,” he said.
Reibman also warned that without the MCAS, employers could favor graduates from towns such as Needham over those from gateway cities, exacerbating inequities.
“From the employer’s perspective,” Reibman said, “we will no longer have confidence knowing that a student has competence in math, science and English, which is essential in making hiring decisions.”
Matt Hills, a former Newton School Committee chair and current vice chair of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, recently spoke to the Chamber about “What the data tells us about the MCAS test.” According to Hills, the largest segments of students who are not earning a diploma because they failed to pass the MCAS are English language learners and students with the most severe special needs.
Although the vast majority of these cohorts do pass, concerns about the exam have been with the MCAS since the beginning. The exam launched in the 1990s with low scores and grim predictions. Experts, reported the Boston Globe, feared 40% of students statewide — and 80% in urban districts — would fail to graduate once passing the test became mandatory.
When the graduation requirement took effect for the class of 2003, scores soared. More than four in five members of that class passed on their first attempt. Today, some worry a test without consequences would lower scores again, hurting Needham’s rankings with peer school districts.
Although the School Committee as a whole hasn’t taken a position on the ballot measure, Co-chair Michael O’Brien said he doesn’t believe dropping the test will lower Needham’s scores. “Students take education and testing seriously here,” he said.
The Vote Yes on 2 Committee, which is fully funded by the state teachers union, argues that the “MCAS graduation requirement gives too much power to a standardized test that can’t fully measure a student’s aptitude or preparedness.” Caren Firger, assistant principal at Newman Elementary School and president of the Needham Education Association, the local teachers union, declined to comment on Question 2.
In Needham, where every student has made it to graduation in recent years, Question 2 may seem distant. But the decision voters make next week will determine whether the MCAS remains a statewide benchmark or is only something remembered in history class.
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