The Undergraduate Student Government approved a resolution in support of Question 2, a ballot measure that would eliminate the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System as a high school graduation requirement.
The ballot measure would require “that districts certify that students have mastered the skills, competencies and knowledge of the state standards as a replacement for the MCAS graduation requirement,” according to the proposed text.
The resolution passed unanimously, with one abstention, according to USG Speaker Cristian Orellana. He introduced the resolution after he was approached by Ayden Pol, a grassroots intern with the Massachusetts Teachers Association, who supports the ballot question.
Orellana said there were different reasons members of USG wanted to endorse the measure. “Senators gave examples for having the test be too high a standard, especially for students in minority communities, minority-majority communities,” he said. “Even in elementary/middle school, I did feel like this test was essentially pointless.”
Pol said the graduation requirement disproportionately affects students with learning disabilities and who speak English as a second language. “We have 700 students not graduating a year because of MCAS requirements,” Pol said.
Orellana said the issue was important to him because of his experience with the MCAS, which he took in elementary, middle and high school.
“Because of COVID, I was exempt from my math and English one, but if I would have taken it, I would have failed both of them,” he said. “So when Ayden came with the opportunity to support something like this — as speaker, I have to be non-biased, but this was something I really wanted to bring up to the student government to have debates on.”
Opponents to the measure say the test ensures students from across Massachusetts are held to the same standard.
“If Question 2 passes, some school districts will just adopt lower standards so students ‘graduate’ even if they haven’t learned the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. This will harm our kids for the rest of their lives,” wrote No on 2, a group opposing the measure.
But Pol said the initiative will improve the quality of teaching.
“We’ll still have the high standards, just not those high stakes within that standardized testing,” he said. “What the MCAS is doing currently, and what it has been doing since it’s been in place, is teaching to a test.”
No on 2 includes the Boston Schools Fund, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents and Gov. Maura Healey, in addition to business organizations from across the state. Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire and former New York City mayor who ran for president in 2020, donated $2.5 million to the group in October.
In addition to the MTA and other unions, State Auditor Diana DiZoglio and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey have endorsed the measure. Both groups are endorsed by dozens of state senators and representatives.
Pol said the MTA ran canvassing and phone banking operations, in which voters seemed inclined to vote yes after discussing the question.
Said Pol, “The voters are frustrated because the voters understand that their kids are being taught to the test.”
This article appeared in print on Page 1 of Vol. LVIII Issue VI, published Nov. 4, 2024.
