THIS PAST ELECTION was a consequential one on many fronts. Amidst the general hand-wringing and gloating, in Massachusetts, there is an opportunity for positive next steps in the wake of the Question 2 ballot initiative.
The measure, which voters approved handily, eliminated the requirement that a public-school student pass the state’s standardized annual Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests in order to receive a high school diploma.
Opponents decried the loss of a rigorous statewide bar for high school graduation. Proponents argued that over-reliance on one-size-fits-all tests sapped valuable time and attention from classroom instruction and back-benched other important measures of student achievement. Both sides were right.
The debate over state standardized testing as the 800-pound gorilla in education is by no means a new one. But it is an issue that policymakers and education experts in the Bay State—usually a national leader in education reform—have for too long not thoroughly addressed. And so, as is often the case when an aging paradigm is increasingly unfit for present purposes, answers are sought at the polls instead. Now that the people have spoken about the role of state tests—for now just in high school graduation—what should education and policy leaders do next?
Recently, on WBUR’s “Radio Boston,” Ed Lambert, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education and a vocal opponent of Question 2, made what we think is a very salient observation about next steps. Voters, he said, “sent a message that they wanted a change in the current system; it doesn’t necessarily mean that they wanted no system.”
Indeed, there ought to be a thoughtful and equitable graduation measurement system to replace the outmoded, overweighted—and now overthrown—state testing monolith. The good news is that there is a clear pathway to that desirable and necessary outcome. We see at least three steps that the Commonwealth could immediately take to get back on track.
- Establish consensus on an equitably high bar for all students
The governor and secretary of education should jointly empanel a statewide blue-ribbon commission on graduation measures. This was just done by our neighbor, New York, which paid as much attention to process as to outcomes. As a result, the Empire State was able to hear from many and varied voices about what graduation should entail, engaging both state and national experts and giving voice to educators and community members.
Massachusetts will be in a much better place if the response to the passage of Question 2 is shaped by a broad, carefully facilitated statewide discussion than by backroom bargaining among educational technocrats alone.
2. Use more balanced measures of achievement
State standardized testing is too far from actual learning for its relative weight in graduation requirements. Even the best statewide tests measure only a few core academic disciplines and assess those at a shallow level. Moreover, these tests stop at just documenting achievement gaps and are of limited use for equitably closing them.
Massachusetts should adopt a more balanced system of testing anchored in broad use of what are known as performance assessments—an approach where students directly demonstrate what they know and are able to do through open-ended, real-world tasks such as constructing an answer, producing a project, or performing an activity.
These assessments feed actionable measures directly back to teachers and learners, which are useful for educational improvement. A number of states, such as Kentucky, are already investing in policy framing, curriculum embedded test development, and teacher training designed to take high-quality performance assessments to scale. Along with other vital indicators like coursework, work-based experiences, and grades, a more robust suite of assessments would provide an instructionally useful basis for a new generation of graduation requirements.
3. Adopt 21st century education goals
Look behind the MCAS tests and you’ll find the state’s education standards. Look behind those standards and you’ll glean the purposes of a public education — what the state collectively thinks a high school graduate should know and be able to do at the end of their 13 years in K-12 schooling.
Massachusetts last had a large-scale upgrade in the aims of its education system when the Education Reform Act of 1993 was passed—more than 30 years ago. It established a remarkably durable, consensus set of academic content standards that were translated into the Common Core curriculum frameworks that guide day-to-day instruction and frame testing and school accountability.
It was a great accomplishment, bolstered by the school funding increases of the 2019 Student Opportunity Act. But the world is very different today than it was in the ‘90s. Opponents of Question 2 argued that the MCAS exams (and by inference the underlying standards) ensured that graduates were college and career ready. But it has long been clear that content standards alone set an anemic educational goal for Massachusetts.
We suggest that to truly prepare kids for post-secondary, economic and civic success, the state should aim for deeper learning student outcomes. Yes, students should be expected to master core academic content, but they also need to learn how to think critically and solve complex problems, communicate effectively, work collaboratively, learn how to learn, and develop academic mindsets.
Initial work is already underway. For example, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Kaleidoscope Collective is a pilot program designed to nurture deeper learning in public schools. Massachusetts should significantly increase the rigor and relevance of its aspirations so that a high school degree reflects real readiness for success today. It would represent a missed opportunity to revise graduation measures without asking ourselves broadly as a state what the degree itself should mean for an individual student and for the public good.
We suggest these ambitious post-ballot steps as a pathway to replace an over-emphasized testing requirement with a systemic approach for helping to frame and measure success for all students. While Question 2 was controversial, no matter where one stood on the issue, it has passed. We welcome the change it has brought as a spark to prompt a better approach to graduation requirements—and the education goals and measures behind them. Policymakers, education leaders, academia, the foundation sector, and communities should invest in this grand new opportunity.
Christopher Shearer formerly served as the program officer for policy at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Education Program. Charles Toulmin formerly served as the director of policy at the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
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