Standing Firm on MCAS

Last Tuesday, the Cambridge School Committee voted to eliminate the Massachusetts Comprehension Assessment System (MCAS) test as a mandatory requirement for high school graduation. Cambridge is now the second Massachusetts town to challenge the statewide MCAS graduation requirement, a requirement imposed by the Massachusetts Department of Education in accordance with the 1993 Education Reform Act. With this bold decision, Cambridge has taken an audacious step to protect its students from an unfair, punitive graduation requirement.

A high school diploma should never be contingent on one standardized test. Students who possess several luxuries—wealth, additional time to prepare or easy access to quality tutoring—have an unfair advantage over those who lack such resources. In addition, all public school students would be required to pass it, including students with disabilities and those who have limited English proficiency. And MCAS will test specific information that is included in the state’s curriculum frameworks, but which have yet to be effectively taught many classrooms—which punishes students by testing them on information they may have never learned.

Cambridge deserves credit for realizing this, and for courageously sticking to its own legitimate graduation requirements. The stakes are high—according to the most recent statistics for the high school class of 2003, after the initial test in Spring 2001 and a retest for students who failed in the fall, 43 percent of Cambridge’s students have still not passed the exam. Over the next year and the next few retests, some of those students will increase their scores and pass. But the stark reality remains—if Cambridge had not taken the courageous action it did, a significant percentage of the city’s students would not have received a high school diploma, regardless of their actual record in high school.

Those who voted against this decision expressed a fear that Cambridge will be penalizing its students if Massachusetts nullifies the diplomas of students who do not pass the MCAS. If the state did so, these students may not be able to enter state universities and would be at a disadvantage in the job market. This concern is a valid one, but if it happens, blame should fall squarely on the state and the Department of Education—not on Cambridge.

The substantial degree of local autonomy and control over schools’ curricula is one of the great strengths of the American public education system. It is thus unreasonable for Massachusetts to oblige all its students to pass one test. The school board’s decision will not only be the quickest way to demonstrate opposition and necessitate change in the punitive state law; it also demonstrates that, under a reasonable framework, school districts should be able to establish their own graduation guidelines to best benefit their students.

MCAS has much use as an evaluative tool, providing detailed information about both individual students, teachers and schools—and over time, its results should be of great worth for improving Massachusetts schools. But using one high-standards test to determine who may graduate from high school and who may not is an inaccurate way to measure student achievement. After eliminating MCAS as a graduation requirement, Cambridge will now be able to concentrate on properly educating its students for participation in today’s world.