Voters in Massachusetts—a leader in the standards-based education redesign movement—appear likely to approve a ballot measure to eliminate a key standardized test requirement for high school students.
The proposal, which had significant support early Wednesday morning according to the Associated Press, would nix a longstanding requirement that students pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, 10th grade exam in order to graduate from high school. Students would still be required to demonstrate competency on state standards and the test itself would remain.
Bay State voters’ support for ditching the testing requirement could be a harbinger of public opinion on state standardized testing more generally.
If the ballot measure is approved as expected, Massachusetts would become the latest state to drop a requirement that students pass an exit exam to graduate. Only nine states still have such a requirement, down from more than half of states in 2002. And several of those states have recently contemplated abandoning them.
New York state to drop its exit exam requirement
Earlier this week, New York education officials laid out a timeline for dropping that state’s longtime requirement that students pass the Regents exam to graduate from high school as part of a multi-year revision of graduation requirements that will emphasize proficiency in soft skills—including critical thinking and innovative problem-solving. The state wants to let students show proficiency through capstone projects, internships, and other non-test formats.
Proponents of the Massachusetts ballot measure, including the state teachers’ union, argued that the requirement focused students’ educational experience too heavily on a single exam, shifting emphasis away from other worthwhile learning experiences and putting low-income students, English learners, and students with disabilities at a disadvantage.
But opponents of the proposal contended that it would eliminate a critical tool for ensuring students have the knowledge and skills needed to progress to post-secondary education or the workforce.
The high school class of 2003 was the first in Massachusetts that had to pass the MCAS to graduate. The MCAS has been part of a sweeping, decades-old statewide education reform effort, and students’ test scores have been among the highest in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP.
The likely repudiation of a key testing requirement in one of the bluest states in the country may signal that Democratic voters are sympathetic to the argument—championed by teachers’ unions—that state assessments don’t capture what students truly know, and unfairly penalize schools that serve poor children and students of color.
Supporters of standardized testing, including some civil rights organizations, argue that the exams push states and districts to focus on students such as English learners and students in special education, and direct needed resources to foundering schools.
A fight on the issue could be brewing at the federal level, but whether anything happens to reduce the role of testing in federal education law depends on who’s elected to the White House, the makeup of Congress, and whether federal policymakers have the appetite to overhaul the Every Student Succeeds Act—the 2015 law that requires states to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school.
Over the summer, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, called for the end of high-stakes testing as the basis of federal education law. And Miguel Cardona, President Joe Biden’s education secretary, has been more critical than his predecessors of standardized tests and their high-stakes nature, but hasn’t pursued significant policies to deemphasize testing.
