MASSACHUSETTS — The battle over using MCAS test results as a graduation requirement in Massachusetts — as well as using the standardized test scores to compare school performances — heated up this week with the state Department of Education releasing results from last spring showing students still well behind pre-COVID-19 learning levels.
Question 2 on the November ballot would eliminate passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System as a graduation requirement, while teachers’ unions argue the test itself should be de-emphasized, if not scrapped entirely.
But state Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler said in a news statement that the lagging scores “demonstrate the importance of continued assessment and accountability” and that the MCAS is a tool to help “build on these efforts to help all of our students realize their dreams and ambitions.”
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The results showed students slipping even from 2023 in English Language Arts and remaining well below pre-pandemic scores. The results for math were even year over year, while also being well off 2019 scores, while science scores increased slightly year over year.
In English, 39 percent of students in grades 3 and 8 passed in 2024, compared to 42 percent in 2023 and 52 percent in 2019. For 10th-graders, 57 percent passed, compared to 58 percent in 2023 and 61 percent in 2019.
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Math scores were even at 41 percent for third and eighth graders in both 2023 and 2024, compared to 49 percent in 2019. For 10th graders, scores were down to 48 percent from 50 percent in 2023, compared to 59 percent in 2019.
“As the MCAS results show today, the road back from the pandemic is not short,” Tutwiler said. “We’re encouraged to see that students are making gains in science and technology/engineering, but there is still more work to do in English language arts and math.”
State data showed most districts were making either moderate or substantial improvement toward targets — among those not already considered having achieved those targets — with only a handful of districts statewide lagging to the point of requiring additional state assistance.
But the Massachusetts Teachers Association and American Federation of Teachers both issued statements blasting the tests themselves on Tuesday as the campaign rages statewide on whether to continue to use them as a graduation requirement.
“We have long been concerned about the harm caused by the MCAS,” the MTA said. “That is why educators and public education advocates across the state are fighting to replace the MCAS graduation requirement associated with these tests.
“The use of these scores to rank and sort schools is also deeply problematic. MCAS data provide just one snapshot of student performance. The fact that MCAS scores from the spring are just now being released demonstrates how the exam is not designed to allow educators and districts to take immediate action to support students.”
American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts President Jessica Tang called the MCAS a “punitive and narrow test-based system.”
“It’s concerning that the state continues to use an accountability system that is obviously not working — one that is punitive toward the students with the highest levels of need, one that only exacerbates the achievement gaps we’re seeing between students in our cities and their peers in wealthier suburbs,” she said.
The MTA said using the MCAS scores to rank schools against each other in the years following COVID-19 “will return us to a time when one’s ability to get a quality, public education was wholly reliant on their zip code.”
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The MTA is in favor of Question 2 eliminating the MCAS as a graduation requirement if they are to be administered at all.
“Removing the MCAS graduation requirement is one way that the exams can be placed in their proper context,” the MTA said. “Incorporating MCAS scores alongside results from other assessment tools routinely used by educators will provide more accurate and actionable information about student performance.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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