The Class of 2024 marches onto the athletic field for the graduation ceremony at Sharon High School in Sharon, Mass., on June 2, 2024. (Janine L. Weisman/Rhode Island Current)
Massachusetts, long the darling of American education, is about to shut down a major engine of its success. Ballot Question 2 asks voters to end the requirement that students pass a fairly low bar on the state’s 10th grade test to receive a diploma. Sadly, Question 2 will probably pass.
Its advocates stoke fears about student stress (more on that below), cheered on by exaggerated, dire data spread by the Massachusetts Teachers Association that has been so debunked, not even the union uses it any more. But, as we all know now, killing misinformation is tough.
How vital is Massachusetts’ MCAS high school graduation requirement?
Besides its other assets, one great beauty of the graduation requirement is that kids have skin in the game. The outcome is consequential to them personally, reducing their inclination to blow it off. Without the graduation requirement, it doesn’t really matter.
From 2002, when the test was not consequential, to 2003, when the requirement was implemented, the number of students passing the MCAS on the first try increased by about 20%. That wasn’t schools suddenly pulling off miracles. That’s the kids being motivated.
In 2023, 78% of the eligible students passed all three tests on the first try. School communities may furiously resent testing, as we all chaff at accountability, but they take it seriously.
Students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate some MCAS 10th grade proficiency. Passing last year’s English test required only 15 points out of 51. Cut scores are going up incrementally, but the burden is not that hefty.
Already this year, about 91% of the 70,000 seniors passed all three tests. Less than 1% of seniors failed one or more tests. For them, the state has a wealth of waivers, alternative assessments, and ways of meeting “competency determination,” designed especially for special needs populations, including English language learners.
A principal argument for stripping away the diploma requirement is that the test is stressful. OK. But except in the case of diagnosed anxiety disorder, which is a special need, test anxiety is a fact of life. Joining the military and or getting a license to drive requires testing. What you wear to a job interview can be a test. Asking someone to marry you is a huge test.
One great beauty of the graduation requirement is that kids have skin in the game. The outcome is consequential to them personally, reducing their inclination to blow it off. Without the graduation requirement, it doesn’t really matter.
Learning to face adversity is perhaps life’s most important lesson. And yet, this culture, especially the elites, have bubble-wrapped their kids in all manner of protection from adversity. Then, in the name of equity and compassion, schools increasingly offer the same bubble-wrapping to low-income, urban kids with bad practices like grade inflation. This is no favor to kids who will have to work harder anyway. It undermines their sense of agency by removing the opportunity to practice “I can do this.” Masking their challenges is the opposite of social justice. Helping them do whatever is necessary to nail the challenge is equal opportunity.
R.I. math test scores inch up while those in Mass. plateau. Will state ever catch up?
The MCAS was part of the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act. It was driven by a lawsuit demanding equity by allowing the public to see a common measurement of knowledge and skills attainment. Taxpayers, families and the business community wanted meaningful diplomas. They wanted to know if the taxpayers’ $16 billion investment in public education was and is well spent.
With fewer students going to college and fewer employers requiring college degrees, the value of a reliable high school diploma has gone up.
Teachers complain about wasting time on test preparation. Most school leaders dispute its value anyway. I wonder what test prep looks like and if they’re really doing it. I see no evidence. At best, it might feed an anxious misery hoping to get the public to axe accountability. Some of the most successful schools for urban kids use the testing data to target resources to the vulnerable kids. They also work to overshoot the standards of the tests, by refining useful, intriguing, disciplined materials that give kids confidence in their own learning and abilities.
To bring this issue home, for a moment, Rhode Island should be so bold as to hold kids accountable. After using the MCAS, here called the RICAS, in grades 3-8, our state switches to the SAT in high school, throwing accountability into a cocked hat. And no matter what the socioeconomic status of any given Massachusetts district, our comparable districts perform way below theirs in each case.
Harness student motivation. Teach, or at least give the kids practice in facing adversity. Students need help investing in their own futures.
Shutting down the MCAS grad requirement will not look good three or four years down the road. Perhaps Rhode Island will be pleased when the discrepancy between the high MCAS scores and the lackluster RICAS scores narrows.
But it won’t be a good thing.
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