The Joint Committee on Education of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is currently deliberating over the potential removal of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as a graduation requirement, sparking debate on whether or not the state should maintain MCAS as a graduation requirement.
Introduced in 1993, MCAS was developed as part of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) and strove to promote higher and more consistent standards for students. MCAS, designed to ensure accountability in the Massachusetts public education system, attempts to evaluate students’ knowledge and skills in core subjects including English, mathematics, and science. The results help teachers, parents, and students know areas that they are excelling in and areas that they need to improve.
However, this February, a bill named the Thrive Act was introduced, aiming to support what it describes as the “whole child.” This bill presents an opportunity to support high-need school districts, those with a high percentage of students of low income, economic disadvantages, disabilities, and English language learners, by graduating students based on their mastery of Massachusetts’ educational standards instead of test results. Under the bill, student learning and assessment would be reoriented to rely on different methods instead of a standardized test.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), in favor of this bill, argues that “Massachusetts is only one of the eight states in the country that ties its standardized test to graduation and there is no correlation between having a standardized graduation exam requirement and academic achievement.”
Moreover, the association highlights that MCAS can also disadvantage students with Individualized Education Plans, students learning English as a second language, students of color, and students of marginalized groups who have historically faced inequitable access to a supportive education.
Mr. Gekopi, the president of the Wellesley Teacher’s Association and a psychology teacher at the high school shares his thoughts on this issue.
“I’m certainly not opposed to diagnostic testing, but if we are… trying to have different classes that speak to different types of learning and allow students to explore and cultivate different interests…When [teachers] take professional development, we’re told that we need to take the time to get to know our students as learners, we need to incorporate our students’ interests into our classes, we need to impact our students’ educational interests through personal biography, and none of that is on the MCAS test,” Gekopi said.
Some of the negative impacts of MCAS have also been felt by students.
“It feels like a lot of time that’s wasted, but I get that there has to be a threshold in order to understand that everybody’s got a standard level of education. After a certain point, however, it does become a little tedious,” said Eva Meraw ’25.
Meraw explains that the time used to take MCAS could be better used to support students struggling in other areas. Instead of removing it as a graduation requirement altogether, Meraw believes that cutting down the number of required years of MCAS would be a better solution that will benefit students while also allowing administrators to compile the data needed to assess the public schools.
Ivy Wang ’24, another student at the high school, explains that MCAS is necessary but needs to be adjusted to meet student needs.
“In Massachusetts, our curriculum varies a lot even from class to class so that’s why it’s nice to have some sort of standardization to see where students in the state are at overall, but obviously we need to make some adjustments to that standardization as the times change,” said Wang.
At the same time, however, many argue that MCAS should be kept as a statewide graduation requirement.
In an interview with WBZ-TV political analyst John Keller, Massachusetts Secretary of Education Pat Tutwiler clarified that contrary to popular belief, the bill will not remove MCAS but will instead remove the test as a graduation requirement. MCAS will still be required by federal law which requires an English and math test in grades three through eight and once in high school. Tutwiler believes that it is important for students who graduate in Massachusetts to have met a certain standard, currently represented by MCAS.
“I support the idea of there being a state standard for high school graduation. If [the Thrive Act] passes, [it] would deliver us to a place of no standard: essentially, 351 standards for high school graduation. I don’t think that is the direction to go, the governor does not believe that is the direction to go, and so no I do not support [the Thrive Act],” said Tutwiler.
David McCullough, an English teacher at the high school also shares similar opinions.
“I recognize the benefits of the MCAS test and even endorse the thoughts behind the test because [the Education Board] really are not testing the individual kid, but they’re testing the school system so they can get a better understanding of how different communities across the state are doing,” said McCullough.
Overall, students and administrators share mixed opinions on MCAS, acknowledging that the test has both positives and negatives; however, many also believe that it is time for schools to begin embracing other modes of assessment.
“I do think that there are many other metrics of student success, so I think it is important for students to begin to have a voice in their educational career,” said Gekopi.