Abolish the MCAS Graduation Requirement: Vote Yes on Ballot Question Two

by Allison P. Farrell 10 October 2024

It’s time to get rid of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System graduation requirement.

Monday evening, in a close 4-4-1 vote, the Cambridge City Council rejected a policy order to endorse ballot question two in the upcoming state election. A vote yes on question two would remove the tenth-grade MCAS — a set of standardized tests assessing student performance in English language arts, mathematics, and science — as a statewide high school graduation requirement.

At the core of the debate lies the question of who gets to decide what level of achievement a diploma signifies. Opponents of shedding the graduation requirement contend that when individual districts determine what level of ability students must demonstrate to graduate, diplomas become meaningless. Without a central authority guaranteeing basic standards of education are met, districts might let under qualified students slip through the cracks.

Among the proponents of the bill is the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which argues that removing the MCAS requirement would benefit students and teachers alike. Students’ abilities cannot be fully measured by a test, it contends, and the elimination of the requirement would allow teachers to better educate “the whole child.”

The MTA’s argument is a persuasive one, in no small part because few have a better grasp of on-the-ground classroom realities than the people who spend their days working directly with students.

The teacher’s understanding of the student is fundamentally different from that of the statewide administrator’s. When the teacher thinks about their students, they think in terms of individual relationships and specific experiences. The administrator, on the other hand, must consider only “students” in the aggregate. As such, they necessarily rely on data like that obtained by the MCAS — without it, it becomes impossible for the administrator to consider the Commonwealth’s more than 900,000 enrolled students.

Ballot question two asks whether the teacher or the administrator should be the arbiter of the high school diploma. The end of the MCAS requirement would leave the question of graduation more or less up to whether students perform adequately in their courses according to teacher-assigned grades.

Both of these standpoints provide useful insights into Massachusetts schools. While teaching is a fundamentally relational and intimate practice that provides critical, unique knowledge of the student, understanding broader issues of equity and excellence statewide requires a bird’s-eye view afforded only by standardized numbers.

But these two perspectives are not as irreconcilable as they may seem.

The MCAS and similar assessments exist to measure the overall successes and failures of districts. By taking a sample from each student (in the form of their MCAS score), the state can develop a sense of the places where students excel and where they fall short.

As an assessment of individual students, however, these exams fall short. Students have off days. They may have a teacher who is a bad fit. They may be poor test-takers. Such concerns are out of students’ control and should not be what stands between them and a diploma.

Considered in this way, the answer to ballot question two becomes clear: If these exams more accurately measure district performance than individual student performance, we must eliminate them as graduation requirements.

This is not to say a system based solely on classroom assessments and district-implemented requirements is perfect. There very well may be teachers and schools in the Commonwealth that are willing to pass any student, regardless of ability. But this problem, too, can be solved.

Question two will not do away with the administration of MCAS exams, which students will still have to take as a gauge of aptitude. Rest assured, the state will continue to collect district-level data. In fact, Massachusetts can use that data to ensure that educational standards remain high without the MCAS as a graduation requirement.

For instance, if testing data indicates that students from any given school are graduating at higher rates than current MCAS requirements would suggest they ought, this should direct the attention of statewide administrators to the district. If all students in a district are graduating, yet many cannot pass the MCAS, that would prompt worries that the school is not rigorously assessing students. By matching graduation rates against MCAS performance, administrators can still assess which districts are in need of extra support.

Instead of being used to punish students with subpar testing abilities, MCAS data should simply be used to enforce graduation-readiness standards on a district-by-district basis. Individual students should not be held to account for the failings of the school they happen to attend or for mishaps on test day.

Students are partly responsible for their education, but we must consider their age — they are also children and young adults — as well as the elements of chance that can affect test results. Much of the blame for poor testing must rest on the professionals and schools responsible for educating these students, along with many factors entirely external to the school system. It is in fixing problems that rest at the school, district, community, and state levels that true excellence can be achieved.

This Election Day, vote yes on question two.

​​Allison P. Farrell ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Philosophy concentrator in Leverett House.