Students may no longer be required to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) in order to graduate after Massachusetts voters decide Tuesday, Nov. 5, on the state ballot’s Question Two.
Currently, high school students in the state must pass the 10th-grade English and Math MCAS and the 9th-grade Science MCAS to graduate. If Question Two on this November’s ballot passes, this requirement will be removed, and students’ MCAS scores will no longer affect their graduation eligibility.
“It does not get rid of the MCAS. What it does is remove the graduation requirement portion of the MCAS. The slogan for ‘Yes on Two’ is high standards without high stakes. We don’t want to lower standards, and Question Two won’t do that,” said English teacher Mike Schlegelmilch, the Newton Teachers Association Building Representative. The union supports Yes on Two.
Some students, like junior Renee Frenette, support removing the requirement. “I don’t think it’s necessary because it doesn’t show how students perform, and standardized tests can be stressful,” she said.
Students and teachers may have differing opinions, especially regarding equity for such a standardized test. According to Winston, the MCAS can unfairly affect English Language Learner (ELL) students.
“The students who tend to have to retest multiple times tend to be our English language learning students and our students with disabilities,” said Winston. “So our students who come to us from around the world, which we have many of here at North, they have to take MCAS tests just like everybody else, even if they are just beginning to learn English. These different populations are disproportionately impacted by the graduation requirement.”
According to Shlegelmilch, removing MCAS is a question of equity for those with less opportunities.
“In the 30 years that MCAS has existed, it’s been used as a tool to punish districts that don’t get high enough test scores. And those districts tend to be districts that already are lacking resources,” said Shlegelmilch.
“Using this test to fire educators in those districts, to take away money and resources, is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. Districts that are under-resourced and that have significant populations of students who are not graduating need more resources and more support. High-stakes testing under the MCAS has done exactly the opposite of that,” added Schlegelmilch.
Junior Anna Tackie added, “I think the reason for having the question on the ballot is because teachers and people have seen there’s an obvious decline, and it’s getting harder and harder for kids to pass the MCAS, so they’re trying to make it easier and more accessible for everyone to graduate.”
According to Winston, a reason behind voting “no” could be that MCAS holds a high standard for all students in the state before graduating. Massachusetts is one of only eight states in the country that base graduation on a standardized test.
“I think the messaging on the ‘no’ side is that the reason Massachusetts is a leader in education is partly because of the MCAS, because it upholds standards for everybody,” said Schlegelmilch. “Like, if we get rid of this test, then Massachusetts is no longer gonna be an educational leader.”
Tackie said schools should be preparing students better for MCAS.
“I think that you should have to pass the MCAS to graduate. I think there should be certain exceptions. Because I think one of the problems is that we’re just not preparing people well enough in general. Some people are getting better or worse education, and that’s what’s leading to this being such a problem,” said Tackie.
According to junior Annie Huang, the MCAS requirement should reflect the way colleges provide exceptions on the SAT score submissions for specific students.
“I think it shouldn’t be required because even the SAT, which is a standardized test that some colleges require, exempts people that came to the US within 2 years,” said Huang. “I think for MCAS, it should be the same. So then it’s fair to people.”
According to Schlegelmilch and Vice Principal Amy Winston, question two may present the possibility of a new requirement to replace the MCAS, and possible replacements for testing graduation eligibility are already in the works.
“Instead of having a single high-stakes test that is only about a few different subjects, we could, number one, have assessments that come from teachers and communities, rather than being imposed on everybody from above,” said Schlegelmilch. “And number two, we could have assessments that look at the whole range of things that we want students to learn in high school and not just this one narrow assessment.”
Winston said she would be interested in looking at a variety of ways of testing student graduation eligibility in addition to the MCAS.
“One of the things that’s interesting is the suggestion to replace MCAS with more clear standards around what courses you take to graduate,” said Winston. “And MCAS could be one possible way that students show their readiness for graduation, but we should also have some other measures and some other options, so that students and families could choose the one that helps that student best demonstrate their learning. Because I think that’s what we really believe in at North, that different students are able to demonstrate their learning and understanding in lots of different ways.”
