Once a leader in education reform, Massachusetts may be losing its edge, writes Kevin Mahnken on The 74. Achievement gaps between affluent and low-income students have widened. Activists led by the Massachusetts Teachers Association are trying to "eliminate the use of the MCAS, the state’s standardized test, as a high school graduation assessment." They've placed an initiative on the November ballot.
"The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System was developed as the result of the landmark Education Reform Act of 1993, considered the Big Bang of recent K–12 history in the state," Mahnken writes. Annual MCAS testing is the key to the accountability system.
Exit exams have been under attack across the country, he notes. Many states no longer require students to pass a test to qualify for a diploma.
James Peyser, a former state secretary of education, fears the “unwinding” of accountability and school improvement. “If you have no real assessment system to determine how students are doing, and you have no accountability for meeting standards, and you have no authority for the state to take action when schools aren’t adequately serving their students, then the Education Reform Act is a dead letter,” he told Mahnken.
Students who fail the test can try again. Only about 700 seniors each year fail to graduate due due to MCAS, the state reports.
"Performance on the test is correlated with real-world outcomes like college enrollment and career earnings," according to an analysis by Brown economist John Papay, writes Mahnken.
Ending the MCAS graduation requirement would free teachers to "replace the countless hours spent preparing students for MCAS with many more hours of creative, innovative, and rewarding learning experiences," write Cynthia Roy, a technical-school teacher, and Shelly Scruggs, a parent of a student at a vocational school.
They favor "authentic learning," such as a senior project that requires students to "write a research paper, develop a product, and defend it to a panel of educators and community stakeholders."
Gov. Maura Healey has proposed the Literacy Launch initiative to encourage research-based reading instruction and require teacher training programs to provide more instruction on how children learn to read, reports Mahnken. However, a legislative effort to require schools to use only state-approved reading curricula is opposed by district leaders, who want local control, and by the teachers' union.
“A lot of the same people who will tell you that society needs to believe in science don’t necessarily believe that when it comes to literacy and choosing a curriculum that works,” said Ed Lambert of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Schools. Massachusetts has become complacent about its education system, he said. It's been a model of excellence for other states. But that could end.
The local grading policy of the municipalities that should replace America's incompetent unified school districts should counsel most youth towards transitioning into the vocational education & training of cooperating companies, secondary schools, and career courses leading towards state VET diplomas, which may be supplemented by state exams that may or may not be combined into vocational baccalaureate programmes qualifying students for state-subsidized university admission.
in Nevada, the Clark County School District (nation's 5th largest, but getting smaller) has a
minimum "F" policy where no grade may be lower than 50, unlimited test retakes, attendance,
participation, etc are not counted,, and you can turn in homework as late as you want...
Too bad this doesn't happen in the real world (i.e. - anything not in Academia)
Most states have already dumped the graduation exam, so it's not as if MA is doing anything unusual.
If one does not want to know the answer, then one will not want to ask the question. If one does not get bad information, then one does not have to act.
Let's be honest, the high school diploma these days is nothing more than an attendance certificate. It's been mostly that for about 20 years, but now it's total. My district has policies in place, that it is just about impossible to fail a kid, even if they deserve it. The amount of paperwork, especially for SPED, ESOL and (the ultimate joke) 504, makes it more trouble than it's worth. Give 'em the 70 and move on.