Who’s behind the MCAS ballot initiative? A fifth-grade teacher from Hull.

By James Vaznis 30 September 2024

One morning three years ago, veteran teacher Deb McCarthy arrived at the red-brick Lillian Jacobs Elementary School in Hull with every intention of spending the day teaching.

It was the day of the statewide MCAS exams, which the fifth-grade teacher was boycotting. She planned to perform physics experiments with students whose parents opted them out of the tests because they were concerned about their mental well-being amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But her principal called her into a meeting with a school district attorney and a union representative. She was sent home on paid administrative leave for three days. The move came several weeks after McCarthy, who was 61 at the time, notified the district in writing about her refusal to proctor the state-mandated exams.

“I knew where this was going,” she said. But ”I felt I had no choice, because someone has to stop this system of harm and call attention to it.”

Now, McCarthy is taking her opposition to the MCAS testing to the voters. As vice president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, she’s heading up a ballot initiative this November to repeal the MCAS high school graduation requirement. McCarthy’s quest exemplifies the frustration shared by many educators and parents with MCAS, which is fueling the biggest revolt over testing to hit Massachusetts in two decades.

In many ways, the pandemic provided fertile ground for Question 2 to emerge this fall. The decision by state education leaders to restart MCAS testing in spring 2021 after a one-year hiatus angered scores of educators, parents, and even local officials, who were worried about the stress it would inflict on students. Full-time in-person instruction was just resuming that spring at many schools and students were woefully behind in their learning.

McCarthy’s act of defiance capped years of frustration with MCAS. She’d seen firsthand the anxiety it caused children and objected to the way the state used the results to punish schools and deny diplomas to hundreds of marginalized students each year. She felt she couldn’t go along anymore with a testing system she vehemently opposed.

“My silence was perpetuating more harm,” she said.

If voters approve the ballot measure, high school students no longer must pass MCAS exams in English, math, and science to receive their diplomas. Instead, students would need to complete coursework certified by their districts in those subjects that meet state academic standards.

Question 2 has divided the state’s education community. Supporters of the repeal, which include the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, say the MCAS graduation requirement forces schools to focus on subjects tested by MCAS and creates too much anxiety and retesting of students. Approximately 16,000 10th-graders last spring did not pass all three MCAS exams, according to scores released Tuesday.

But opponents, including Governor Maura Healey, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, and educators who are breaking union ranks, say the requirement has been critical in propelling Massachusetts public schools from the middle of the pack nationwide to the top. They believe it ensures that the recipient of each diploma possesses the basic skills needed to succeed in college or the workforce.

Many opponents also note that ultimately only a little more than 700 students who couldn’t pass the MCAS end up being denied diplomas — about 1 percent of all would-be graduates annually. Repealing the requirement could end up causing more harm to students, they say.

“It’s unfair to give kids a diploma when they are not ready to graduate and they haven’t secured a certain level of proficiency,” said Cynthia Agruso, a math teacher at Agawam Junior High School, who opposes the repeal.

Massachusetts established the MCAS graduation requirement under the 1993 Education Reform Act and enacted it a decade later. It was controversial from the start, sparking numerous protests, legislative bills, and even litigation over concerns it would hurt students from disadvantaged backgrounds. (Most students denied diplomas have disabilities or are English learners.)

For many educators, the graduation requirement is only the tip of their concerns.

Educators begin preparing students for the MCAS in elementary schools, which teachers say forces them to devote too much time to test prep. They also have deep concerns about the state using MCAS scores to judge the performance of schools.

If a school’s test scores are low, the state can impose dramatic changes, including forcing teachers to reapply for their jobs. Educators also note that scores each year show big disparities among students of different racial backgrounds, raising concerns about testing bias.

Jessica Tang, president of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, said McCarthy is a champion for pushing to repeal the MCAS graduation requirement.

“She, unlike many of us, knows what it was like to teach when MCAS wasn’t a graduation requirement,” she said, and because of that McCarthy “remembers when there was more joy in teaching.”

Critics say the ballot question is part of a broader strategy by teacher unions to eventually dismantle the state’s entire testing system.

McCarthy wasn’t always opposed to MCAS. When the exams first came out, she thought the scores could help educators improve their teaching methods — bringing attention to weaknesses in their lessons and helping them meet state standards. She was so enthusiastic she became known as the “MCAS data guru” at the Jacobs School, which she also attended as a child.

“I would say for the first five years I was faithful to the data,” she said.

But then she began seeing that schools from lower socio-economic areas did worse than ones in wealthy neighborhoods, even if their classroom lessons aligned with state standards.

Eventually, she banded together with other like-minded educators who were planning to boycott the MCAS exams in 2021, calling themselves “conscientious objectors.” She coordinated with dozens of Cambridge teachers, whose union issued a press release about their boycotts that attracted widespread news coverage.

McCarthy “honestly felt the MCAS was damaging to kids,” said Mary Henriksen, who worked with her for more than 20 years at the Jacobs School. “She was a phenomenal teacher, she had great compassion for her students, and she always did everything she needed to help them.”

Outside the Jacobs School that morning three years ago, a small group of supporters rallied alongside McCarthy. Her mother, in her mid-80s at the time and using a wheelchair, held a sign “Let Deb Teach.” McCarthy then went home and did what any teacher would do: She corrected papers and planned lessons.

“I felt like I was living my values,” she said.

McCarthy has not administered the MCAS since. She was again disciplined the following year for boycotting the test, and then left the classroom to serve as the MTA’s vice president. She said leaving was a difficult decision.

“Being in a classroom is my life force,” McCarthy said.

Now she devotes her attention to ending high-stakes testing. McCarthy was the first to sign the petition that got the ballot question going last summer and the union got the required signatures to put the question on the ballot, after legislators declined to repeal the requirement outright.

“This was never meant to be a system that harms students, but unfortunately that’s what’s happening right now,” McCarthy said. “When this [ballot measure] passes, there are going to be hundreds of kids who are given the opportunity to get a diploma.”