All that speaks to the success of this state’s two-decade commitment to educational improvement. So doesn’t it seem strange to see the Massachusetts Teachers Association trying to deep-six the MCAS graduation exam, a vital part of education reform? Emboldened by their November ballot victory on charter schools, the MTA has launched a full-court press to impose a three-year moratorium on any graduation exam, with an eye to ending it altogether. Sadly, more than 100 legislators have signed onto the union’s ill-considered legislation.
Those who have long followed this state’s educational improvement efforts may remember the predictions that having a graduation exam would drive the dropout rate up. But the 2016 graduation rate set a record, with 87.5 percent of students turning their tassels. Boston hit a high of 72.4 percent, up from 59 percent a decade ago.
Passing the MCAS — or the MCAS 2.0, as the latest test is sometimes called — has become routine. These days, the focus is on boosting students to proficiency. There, too, large strides have been made. Consider: Back in 1998, when the test was first given (though not on a must-pass-to-graduate basis), only 24 percent of Massachusetts 10th-graders scored proficient or higher in math, while only 38 percent reached those levels in English. In 2016, 78 percent of Bay State sophomores hit those praise-worthy plateaus in math, 91 percent in English.
David Driscoll, state education commissioner from 1999 to 2007, says there’s no doubt the MCAS exam, which measures student mastery of the curriculum standards developed during education reform, played a key role in boosting student performance.
“We jumped to the top of the country, and we have stayed there,” he says.
Long-time observers of urban education say the exam has helped keep kids from falling through the cracks. “The MCAS forced us to pay attention to every student,” notes Neil Sullivan, executive director of the Boston Private Industry Council, a workforce-development nonprofit that works closely with the Boston schools. “A large population that wasn’t being sufficiently and adequately educated moved up a couple of notches.”
Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester agrees that MCAS results have been an important tool in helping schools focus on individual student weaknesses and needs. Pre-MCAS, he says, “it was much easier to overlook students who weren’t keeping up with their studies but were maybe sliding by with C’s.”
Now, it’s no real surprise that under hard-left firebrand Barbara Madeloni, the MTA is targeting the MCAS legislatively. Or that the union is urging parents to keep their kids from taking the test. Or that the MTA’s legislation would dramatically weaken many of the school-turnaround powers the legislature passed in 2010 to help improve lousy schools. Or that Madeloni thinks the teachers unions should be in control of the schools. Still, Madeloni’s anti-MCAS quest would break the time-honored education-reform bargain, which matched a big infusion of state money with higher standards and more accountability. Her agenda calls for more money with no real accountability.
What is disappointing, however, is that so many legislators have hopped aboard. Perhaps they are just angling for campaign contributions. Or perhaps they don’t know the history of education reform in Massachusetts.
Either way, constituents who value Massachusetts’ first-in-the-nation educational status should press those lawmakers on why they have joined the MTA’s misguided mission.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.