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When Massachusetts voters head to the polls on Nov. 5, all eyes will be on a hotly contested referendum: whether to eliminate a statewide exam as a high school graduation requirement.
The campaign for Ballot Question 2 — which would remove the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System as a high school graduation requirement — has raised more than $7 million from the Massachusetts Teachers Association, making it the most expensive of the state’s five ballot questions.
It has pit two of the state’s progressive champions in Washington — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ayanna S. Pressley (D-Mass.), who endorsed the proposition — against leadership at home, including Governor Maura T. Healey ’92.
And it has divided Cambridge, as parents, teachers, and policymakers on both sides of the issue make their case that their way would best address the city’s persistent racial and economic achievement gaps.
The measure’s proponents say that the MCAS requirement leaves students stressed and discouraged — especially low-income students and students of color — while forcing schools to adapt their curriculum to the test.
“It just seems wrong to make a high stakes test for their graduation requirement, particularly since the test was never designed for that purpose in the first place,” said Dan Monahan, the president of the Cambridge Educators Association, a union representing Cambridge teachers.
“We’re not trying to educate test takers,” he said. “We’re trying to educate citizens.”
But opponents such as Paul Reville — a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former Massachusetts Secretary of Education, who was involved in the implementation of the MCAS — said the requirement remains necessary to standardize graduation expectations statewide and track educational performance across district and demographic lines.
“If we don’t have a high standard, and we don’t apply it to all, if the mantra of education reform at the time was ‘All means all,’ then some kids are going to get left behind,” Reville said.
In Cambridge, no one argument has won out. The City Council narrowly rejected a policy order endorsing Question Two by a 4-4-1 vote during an Oct. 7 meeting, while a similar resolution before the Cambridge School Committee received a lukewarm reception a week later.
Though critics have raised concerns about the MCAS graduation requirement disproportionately hurting students of color, with disabilities, or from lower socioeconomic means, HGSE professor Irvin L. Scott, a former chief academic officer for Boston Public Schools, said the requirement holds schools and educators accountable toward equity goals.
“I just never believed in taking away a challenge or lowering a standard because someone’s struggling to meet the standard,” Scott said. “I think it’s on the system to provide adequate supports to ensure that they meet the standards.”
Scott equated removing the MCAS graduation requirement to “turning the lights off.”
“You’re not shining the light on who’s passing, who’s not passing. You’re not making it high stakes enough,” Scott said. “I think that hurts generally Massachusetts, but specifically kids of color, who oftentimes they get treated differently.”
Over the past 11 years, 37 Cambridge students did not receive a diploma due to failing the MCAS, according to a memo from interim Superintendent David G. Murphy to the School Committee and obtained by The Crimson. Of those students, 56 percent had an Individualized Education Plan and only 8 percent were white.
Though students sit for the examination in 10th grade, they may take the exam four more times to meet the graduation requirements.
But Lily R. Read, a Cambridge Rindge and Latin School history teacher, said voters should not underestimate the negative impacts of the exam on student wellbeing.
“I don’t see that it does any positives for students,” she said. “But I do see negative outcomes. I do see stress being caused. I do see kids being worried about graduation. I do see kids having to take classes that are geared towards the test instead of getting to take other electives because they need to pass that test.”
“That really is limiting for students for whom maybe testing simply isn’t something that they're good at,” she added.
Kathy E. Greeley, an MTA member and organizer with Cambridge Retired Educators United, said the MCAS altered the way she taught: from interdisciplinary and project-based work to an increased focus on literacy and math.
“We just started looking at numbers and I found myself realizing that I wasn’t thinking about children. I was thinking about statistics,” she said.
Cambridge parents who spoke to The Crimson were torn over whether the proposal would be best for their children.
Meredith A. Stoddard said that she is waiting to see a practical alternative before eliminating the standard.
“Should we improve the system? Yes, but I think that getting rid of the system, without anything else in place, creates a little bit of a void,” she said.
Tina T. Lieu, a co-leader of Cambridge Families of Asian Descent, said she is voting “yes” because the MCAS is “a lousy diagnostic tool,” omitting important subjects such as social studies and taking months to return results.
She added that Massachusetts’ test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which measures student achievement through nationwide tests, have barely changed since the MCAS graduation requirement was implemented in 2003.
But Manikka Bowman — a former School Committee vice-chair — said though the MCAS is “imperfect,” it still plays an important role in keeping schools and educators responsible for academic progress.
“I am not one to believe that MCAS is perfect. It is imperfect,” she said. “However, I do not believe that its imperfections negate the need for a standard across the state.”
“I think we should improve that standard. We should not get rid of it,” she said.
Despite the fervent debate and organizing, however, the measure may have only a mild impact in Cambridge, where students rarely fail the test, School Committee member Richard Harding, Jr. said.
The real consequences, he added, will be felt elsewhere.
“If we have a public school system that is assessment-less, the kids who are most vulnerable and closest to the pain will feel the brunt,” Harding said. “Look, the kids who are affluent, the kids who are sophisticated, the kids who do well in the Cambridge Public Schools system — the MCAS doesn’t matter.”
—Staff writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at darcy.lin@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Emily T. Schwartz can be reached at emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @EmilySchwartz37
