Massachusetts voters will have a chance to vote on whether the state academic test–MCAS–should continue to be a high school graduation requirement.
Roughly 58 percent of Massachusetts voters said they would support eliminating a requirement that students pass the MCAS examination to graduate high school, far outpacing the 37 percent who said they would vote to keep the mandate in place.
The measure, known as Question 2, is one of the most consequential on the ballot in Massachusetts, which by some measures boasts the best public school systems in the country. Despite that success, the Massachusetts Teachers Association and its leaders are leading the biggest revolt over testing in two decades, arguing the mandate puts too much focus on subjects tested by MCAS and creates too much anxiety and retesting of students.
The question speaks to the frustrations of many parents, including Felicia Torres, a 39-year-old Haverhill resident and mother of three. Her 9-year-old is smart, loves hockey, and enjoys math, but he “dreads and hates school” because he chafes at being taught “whatever they’re forced to learn,” she said.
“I honestly don’t think that a standardized test depicts how well a child will do,” said Torres, a nurse. “I just don’t think it’s accurate.”
The bid to eliminate the MCAS graduation requirement is riding huge advantages among female voters, with 64 percent saying they plan to vote “yes.” Perhaps most notably, 60 percent of independent voters also say they want to eliminate the mandate.
“That tells me it has an excellent chance of passing,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
Typically, he said, those who are undecided about a ballot question ultimately vote against it if they are confused by it or are unsure about its impact, effectively siding with the status quo. In the case of Question 2, only about 4 percent of voters said they were undecided.
The question has split Democratic leaders, with Governor Maura Healey, House Speaker Ron Mariano, and Senate President Karen E. Spilka each opposed to eliminating the requirement while some members of Congress and state lawmakers joined the Massachusetts Teachers Union. But its support isn’t universal among teachers, either.
“You need some sort of tool and measurement stick in terms of how the school is performing,” said Luke, a 37-year-old Wakefield resident and eighth-grade social studies teacher who told pollsters he is voting against the question. He spoke to the Globe on the condition his full name not be used. “If you’re going to still carry out the MCAS, how do you think students are going to take it seriously when you’re saying it doesn’t need to be a requirement?”

Those tests are just ‘money-makers’ for the FEW. Teachers know their students better than any test. Duh…Teachers spend a lot of TIME with students, 5 days/week, and get “real-time information about their students.
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GOOD! I hope it passes and other states follow. Yes, there needs to be some accountability to assess if students are learning or have learned “the basics” (remember those old Iowa tests given in 3rd and 8th grade?). There needs to be ways to assess for learning disabilities (again, the old fashioned tests). The idea of a public education is to graduate every student with a basic education, knowing that not every child wants to or needs to go to college. Let’s get back to the basics!…..we put a man on the moon with those “basics” and we had a unified workforce with those “basics”.
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The test will still be given. The test-prep will still go on and on. The curriculum will still be stymied by the test. The only difference is that a student will not be denied a diploma for failing to pass. While that is a huge positive for the minority of students who don’t pass, the systemic issues with this test-driven education will remain.
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Sad to hear this….if it’s true. Do you teach in MA?
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Yes, MCAS will still be administered, but it will no longer be high stakes – which are only good for tomatoes.
The hope is this change will allow test prep to recede into the background and teachers can return to more important things. It also removes a weapon for turning school systems over to receivership. Nowhere in MA has state takeover been successful.
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I am a retired MA high school teacher.
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State tests have always been a vehicle for closing public schools and undermining public education and teachers. Massachusetts is wise to close the door on this test and punish blame game. State tests with flexible cut scores have never been a valid way to assess academic performance. Teacher assessments are a far better way to evaluate students. and they are far less stressful than the annual threats that come with test and punish policies.
Public schools continue to be part of political churn with ambitious privatizers lining up to gain access to public money. Eliminating state tests is a positive step in the right direction. Vouchers in low information red states along with private equity and Silicon Valley pushing their money making vision into public schools remain constant threats as they can easily buy political will. Vouchers and online platforms remain harmful to both young people and academics. There is still much that needs to be done.https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/the-ai-in-education-conference-circuit
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What would Hurricane Milton Friedman say about this? I think it appropriate that this massive storm bearing down on the West Coast of Florida is named for the godfather of disruption.
Testing is used to disrupt, not to teach. Whereas older tests carried no consequences that were negative for the students, we used to always sell the idea of doing as well as you could so us teachers could see where we needed to help people more. But as the stakes rose, the curriculum narrowed. What has resulted is the privatization disruption. Hurricane Milton.
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Not John Milton?
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You mean the guy who wrote paradigm lost?
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lol
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It is a dark and stormy night here in Tampa, already.
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Bob, stay safe! Why haven’t you evacuated?
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Excellent. I am glad I lived to see this. Looks like Democrats at least are starting to realize some of the issues with tests.
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The MCAS is closely aligned with NAEP and that is why scores tend to be “high” in MA. We still have the Massachusetts/mississippi divide when you look at the standard deviation and compare our students in poverty areas such as my city.. The true picture of MA is that the curriculum frameworks are well designed and give teachers some flexibility and ability to create ; local schools can choose how to flesh out the curriculum staying within the frameworks and the diverse resources and teahing efforts do make a difference. There is a “teacher effect”. The other comment on MCAS is that the younger the students the less it will predict anything at all; so removing this requirement for earlier grades might be useful (secondary teachers may have a different fiewpoint). The bilingual court agreements in Boston have stated in the past the “student does not need an IEP to deserve resources”. IEP and MCAS are ways that we have rationing — sending students into different progrms based upon a test (especially when they are yomg, bilingual, or from less affluent homes is the biggest difficulty I have with this whole testing charade. Gilborrn in U.K. has written about “rationing” and explains how it happens in their country as well. When special ed was becoming more prevalent in MA and institutions (state hospitals) were closing, the administrators would say “get the child coded” so that we can offer more services” in our public school. That to me is the problem that needs to be identified and addressed. A famous professor I had in grad school said “you cannot have both excellence and equity” and I fought a bit about that; but he also would go to school committees and teach how to resolve those discrepancies. The IEP system has shown the discrepancy that you can view in terms of resource delivery– wealthy parents who can afford lawyers will get the most out-of-district placements for resources … These are eternal dilemmas that remain whether or not a specific “test” is being supported and demanded by the state department of education.
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I am not attempting to be pejorative about Mississippi; this is from Brookings: “The bottom line is that states vary in terms of their students’ NAEP performance, and within-state variation across students, classrooms, schools, and districts is much greater. In the words of education researcher Tom Loveless, “[A]nyone who follows NAEP scores knows that the difference between
Massachusetts and Mississippi is quite large. What is often overlooked is that every state has a miniMassachusetts and Mississippi contrast within its own borders” (2013).10
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“Consider Massachusetts and Mississippi, their NAEP means differ by 2.5
points. Every state, including Massachusetts
and Mississippi, has a mini-Massachusetts
and Mississippi contrast within its own
borders. That variation will go un
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This obviously has little effect on society. My daughter is going to school in Hattiesburg, and every person we have met in that state is as nice as I have ever met. Of course my sample is small and influenced by my own observations.
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The usual suspects are unhappy, and Mo Cunningham is pulling back the curtain, as always.
https://www.masspoliticsprofs.org/2024/10/08/framing-the-mcas-opposition-business-community-or-parents/
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Maurice Cunningham is one of my heroes. His work demonstrates how lazy, co-opted or at best just not very smart most education reporters are. If education reporters were science reporters, most of them would be writing articles praising Ivermectin as the best covid cure ever, quoting some guy paid half a million dollars from the folks interested in promoting Ivermectin and presenting that guy as representing all scientists everywhere. Since they are education reporters, they quote Keri Rodriguez, paid over $600,000 by anti-public school billionaires, as the representative of all public school parents everywhere.
Thank you to Professor Cunningham for practicing the journalism that education reporters have abandoned.
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