Massachusetts Schools On the Ballot

Teachers Union Seeks to Abolish Graduation Standards— Should Gym Class be the Only Requirement?

Massachusetts prides itself on education, but about a decade ago, scores on standardized tests began to fall. Then the pandemic hit and scores plunged—and five years later, students still perform worse than they did in 2019.

But never fear. The Massachusetts Teachers Association has proposed a solution—end the requirement that to graduate, students pass a statewide exam. If “Question 2” passes a referendum on the ballot in November, no student need fear failure as a reason for not graduating.

Maybe this approach will succeed. If so, the area’s well-regarded hospitals might direct doctors to stop reviewing x-rays and the Boston Red Sox, who missed the playoffs, might disregard batting averages as a basis for renegotiating salaries. Or maybe this is no joking matter.

We have written previously about the progressive campaign against merit in Cambridge, Ma.—which did away with eighth-grade algebra because some ethnic groups were qualifying at below-average rates.

The present referendum is worse. It applies the same disdain for achievement but directs it at students with the lowest scores—those who can least afford it. By forsaking the requirement that students demonstrate minimal competence, it absolves school districts of the responsibility to educate.

The war over educational standards is nationwide, but Massachusetts is atypical in that, unlike 48 other states, it does not regulate school curriculums (learning requirements are prescribed by localities). The State wields authority principally by administering uniform tests in English Language Arts, math, and science, known by an acronym, MCAS, in third to eighth grade and again in tenth grade.

To graduate high school, students are required to pass the tenth grade tests. The bar is set low—“passing” is set at a level below “meeting expectations”—that is, below grade level.

The great majority pass in tenth grade, but students who fail a subject can retake the test twice in junior year and twice as seniors. Schools have an incentive to work with these students—and most who initially fail ultimately do pass. In addition, there is an appeals process for special needs students and for those who are poor test takers—and most such appeals succeed.

As Scott Lehigh wrote in the Boston Globe, “with work and application almost all will eventually clear the hurdle.” Most of those who don’t pass the MCAS also fail to satisfy local school requirements and wouldn’t graduate anyway. However, for about 700 students a year (1% of the total), failure to pass the MCAS keeps them from graduating.

A diploma is not going to help these students. MCAS scores are highly predictive of college success and income at age 30. Seniors who cannot perform at below-average tenth grade levels are in trouble. The tests send a signal that these students need help.

As an incentive, the MCAS work. Student scores meaningfully rise from eighth grade (when the test carries no consequence) to tenth grade—when it does. If the referendum passed, educators and students alike would cease to care. This is the MTA’s goal—downgrading and ultimately ending uniform standards.

The union recognizes that student test scores also deliver a grade on teacher and district performance. Districts in the State’s urban areas, with large minority concentrations, have been badly underperforming. Boston Public Schools averted a State takeover in 2022 only by pledging a series of reforms—which it has yet to fulfill. Several other systems in the state are in receivership.

The MTA and local unions exacerbated learning deficits during the pandemic, by bludgeoning districts to close for a year or more. Now that learning loss has proved to be semi-permanent, the union wants to hide the problem it created by downgrading testing.

The union’s referendum campaign has been disingenuous. First, it asserted that the MCAS were preventing 50,000 students from graduating—a preposterous overstatement. Matt Hills, vice-chair of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, proved (using State education data) that the number was fictitious.

The union then dropped that claim, but in recent political ads the MTA asserts that Question 2 “replaces the high-stakes MCAS graduation requirement.”

“High-stakes” seems misleading for a test that students can take five times. Moreover, Question 2 does not “replace” the requirement—it abolishes it. If Question 2 is approved, the only statewide requirement for graduation will be completing four years of gym.

Max Page, head of the MTA, says the state's education establishment is too focused on preparing students for "income" and "college readiness." Will the voters agree?

Local districts could set the academic bar as low as needed to show an acceptable level of “graduates.” Troubled schools, generally those with poorer populations, would set the bar lowest.

The MTA President, Max Page, spoke candidly two years ago, when he told the education board that the board and the MTA had “fundamentally different views of what schools are for.” According to Page, the board’s “focus on income, on college and career readiness, speaks to a system … tied to the capitalist class and its needs for profit.”

Perhaps a few progressive parents may indulge in such fantasies, but parents in hard-pressed areas very much want their children’s schools to focus on “income” and on “college and career readiness” and, indeed, to prepare them for the capitalist marketplace. This is why enrollment in Boston Public Schools has nosedived 22% over two decades. BPS has been failing its charges.

In strongly blue Massachusetts, the MTA, with more than 100,000 members, has been a political third rail – not to be crossed. This referendum will test whether politicians and voters have finally had enough.

In a hopeful sign, Governor Maura Healey, a Democrat, opposes Question 2. The normally pro-union Legislature is mixed. Others have maintained a cautious silence. However, Elizabeth Warren, the progressive Senator who last year cheered on an illegal teachers strike, and is up for a third term in November, favors the referendum.

The association of Massachusetts school superintendents, as well as former Secretaries of Education under both Democratic and Republican governors, have campaigned against Question 2. James A. Peyser, secretary under Governor Charlie Baker, wrote that students who fail the MCAS “are just not ready” to pursue careers or higher education. “We are doing them no favor by pretending otherwise.”

Rejecting Question 2 would redouble the State’s obligation to the poorest students. And it would demonstrate—finally—that schools exist to educate students, not to cater to the self-interest and to the ideological whims of the teachers union.