As a teacher, I know MCAS is crucial to ensuring we help all students succeed
Getting rid of the graduation requirement would be a huge step backward for educational equity
I AM A proud member of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. I’m also an educator in a diverse urban district, and strongly believe that teachers who have the tools, resources, and funding they need will deliver great results for our kids. Prior statewide campaigns to increase school funding and stop charter school expansion made this bargain between families and educators: give us the resources to do our job and we will deliver the results.
Unfortunately, the MTA has decided to break this bargain in its latest campaign to eliminate passing the 10th grade MCAS test as a graduation requirement. While I remain a proud member and supporter of my union, I cannot in good conscience allow its endorsement to sway my vote against the interests of our most vulnerable students. The graduation requirement remains necessary to ensure quality, accountability, and equity in our schools. Here’s why.
The statewide assessment came about in the early 1990s as part of a landmark law that brought a huge infusion of new funding to disadvantaged communities in exchange for all districts adhering to a common set of standards. The adoption of standards-based education is a quality control mechanism to ensure that students across the state, whether they are from Newton or New Bedford, are learning the same content at the same pace with the same quality of instruction.
For the last 30 years, these reforms have led to Massachusetts having some of the top math and English scores in the nation and the world. While critics may call this “teaching to the test,” in reality, it is merely a measurement of whether or not teachers and districts are adequately teaching students what they need to learn.
The MTA agrees that standards-based education is an important pillar of education reform, but by opposing the state’s graduation requirement, it actually devalues how seriously districts and educators will take meeting these standards going forward. The MTA is asking us to go back to the days when different communities used different standards to determine who got a diploma.
By removing this measure of accountability and quality control, the MTA will also be ignoring the very real achievement gap that the assessments have shown still exists among different communities in the Commonwealth. Keeping the statewide graduation standard the same for all kids, no matter where they live, means that communities cannot pretend they are meeting the standards. They will actually have to educate their students to meet them.
What does the data show? Unfortunately, assessment results have consistently shown a pattern of inequity between districts and between different subgroups of students. Students from affluent districts have scored better than students from disadvantaged ones. Black and Latino students have scored worse on assessments than white and Asian students, English language learners have scored worse than native speakers, and students on individualized education programs (IEPs) have scored worse than students without.
A new trend has also emerged showing troubling decreases in math and reading scores across all subgroups since the pandemic, a measurable and statistically significant level of learning loss that can be directly attributed to remote learning. Rather than ignore or spin these trends, the graduation requirement forces districts to address them.
Surely the MTA must know that getting rid of the state’s graduation requirement means affluent communities will continue to assess and hold their students accountable to high standards, while less affluent communities will use the excuse of lower funding and demographic challenges to continue to lower the bar. We have already seen this happen as district leaders in lower-income communities used the additional burdens the pandemic placed on working families as an excuse to waive away the real learning loss that has occurred.
The graduation requirement remains our best tool to ensure districts take scores seriously to change their practices in order to make measurable improvements. This is the accountability piece that has to follow the data. Removing the graduation requirement will continue to let these districts, their administrators, and, yes, even their teachers off the hook.
The MCAS is imperfect. No one is disputing this. But it can be improved. Getting more teachers, parents, and students involved in its design and shape is critical. We can use the data to better support the students who are struggling to meet these standards. We will not solve inequities in education by waiving them away. We will only solve them if we confront them head on.
Maintaining the graduation requirement will ensure that student achievement remains at the heart of what we do in schools.
James Conway is a teacher at Revere High School and a member of the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
By James Conway
Commonwealth News Service