Newton Residents Share Perspectives on the Ballot Questions That Could Change Massachusetts

by Genevieve Morrison and Aidan Gravina 22 October 2024

As Massachusetts voters prepare to cast their ballots on Nov. 5, they are faced with choices that could reshape classrooms and dining rooms around the state. Question two could redefine a high school diploma, while the livelihoods of restaurant workers depend on question five.

Here are some perspectives from Newton on two of the five questions at stake in this election.

Question Two: Standardized Test as a Graduation Requirement

This initiative would remove the passage of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as a requirement to graduate from state public high schools.

The MCAS tests students in grades 3–8 on English language arts and math annually. Come high school, students must pass the test at some point between sophomore and senior year in order to graduate.Ryan Normandin, a math teacher at Newton South High School, said he will be voting to remove MCAS as a requirement because he thinks the test is more valuable as a way to collect data on students’ learning rather than a graduation requirement.

“It provides the district good data,” Normandin said. “It allows people to compare different districts to each other, make sure that districts are held accountable for results. The graduation requirement is the problem.”

Since the test is a requirement to graduate, sophomore-year English and math teachers in Newton suspend their curricula in the weeks leading up to the test to drill test preparation, according to Normandin.

This test preparation—which includes topics like test-taking methods, ways to guess on multiple choice, and how to maximize points on open-response—has little educational value, Normandin said.

“This is not real learning, it’s not real education,” Normandin said. “We’re just kind of forced to do it because they need the test to graduate.”

If the test had lower stakes, teachers would not have to prepare their students as intensely, Normandin said.

“If it weren’t a graduation requirement, all that would entail is, okay, on this day we pull you out of class, you take a test, you go back to class,” Normandin said. “We move on.”

In Newton, high schoolers who fail the MCAS have to enroll in a special class that replaces an elective course until they can pass the test, according to Normandin.

“They lose a class from their schedule, so an elective, a study period, a period where they can receive actual support for actual classes,” Normandin said. “Instead, they’re just going through and doing more test prep.”

Normandin said this can be isolating for the students and harmful to learning.

“Even if they go through and do all these retakes, and then they end up passing, in the end, they have lost an enormous amount of time of their high school learning,” Normandin said.

Students also have the option to submit a portfolio of work proving they have sufficiently learned the material tested on the MCAS if they fail the exam.

Normandin said that, too, can take away from students’ time in the classroom.

“This is another class that this kid is spending working with a teacher, who’s also losing prep time, just to go through and try to put together this portfolio,” Normandin said. “It’s a really, really time-consuming thing that’s not good for teaching or learning.”

Ellie Shim, a student at Newton South High School, said she doesn’t think students would try their best on the MCAS if it were no longer required to graduate.

“I think high schoolers’ motivation to do well on MCAS has been solely just for graduation requirements,” Shim said. “So if you take that away, I think it definitely just demotivates our incentive to do well.”

If students were less motivated to succeed, MCAS would lose its value in judging the quality of public schools, Shim said.

“I don’t know if it would be an accurate data collection of our understanding of content at school,” Shim said.

Still, Shim said she would enjoy a lower-stakes testing experience.

“It would be less stressful taking MCAS if it wasn’t a graduation requirement,” Shim said. “It’s really hard for some students who have disabilities or that just don’t test well in general to have the pressure of taking MCAS.”