It was during Shawn’s freshman year at Minuteman High School when his mother, Shelley Scruggs, a Lexington resident, came to the conclusion that students should not have to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams to graduate high school.
For years, Scruggs worried about how Shawn, who has ADHD, would score on the 10th-grade MCAS — a set of standardized tests that cover math, science and technology, and English that Massachusetts public school students must pass to graduate. A junior at Minuteman studying plumbing, Shawn “is not a good test-taker” because of the challenges his learning disability poses, Scruggs said.
Scruggs was elated to see that Shawn passed the math and science and technology sections when she received his scores in September. But, he fell one point short of a passing score in English. If Shawn wants to earn a diploma, he’ll have to retest until he passes, even if he’s fulfilled all other graduation requirements.
“If you screw it up, you can screw up your future,” she said. “It’s too much of a penalty.”
Scruggs researched state laws, and with the support of other Lexington parents, created ballot initiative 23-01, the first that looks to abolish MCAS as a graduation requirement. After she filed 23-01, representatives from The Massachusetts Teachers Association reached out to Scruggs and said they were creating a similar ballot initiative. With Scruggs’ help, that ballot initiative is now the basis of Question 2 on this year’s ballot.
Question 2 asks voters whether the state should get rid of the requirement that students pass the 10th-grade MCAS tests to receive a high school diploma.
A “yes” vote would make it so that students would complete their district’s required coursework to demonstrate competencies in math, science and technology, and English to graduate, but would not be required to pass the MCAS. A “no” vote would maintain passing MCAS as a state-wide graduation requirement.
Opponents of passing the proposed law argue that eliminating the graduation requirement will boost inequity. In affluent towns like Lexington, the quality of education likely won’t change if Question 2 passes, Michael Horn, a Lexington resident and professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, argues, but marginalized communities will suffer if they are no longer held to the same standard.
“In the Lexington bubble, this can feel like a very extraneous thing that adds pressure to our kids’ already over-pressurized experience,” said Horn, who has published several books on the future of education. “But the downsides for us with keeping it are slim to none and the downsides of getting rid of it for a lot of other kids is really actually quite high.”
Conversely, supporters of the ballot question believe the consequences of failing the test are too harsh and the graduation requirement limits school curriculum because educators tend to “teach to the test,” according to Scruggs.
Massachusetts students currently take either biology or physics in their first two years of high school because students must pass an MCAS exam covering one of those subjects to graduate, Robin Strizhak, president of the Lexington Education Association, told LexObserver.
In Lexington, students take biology in 10th grade to prepare them to take the biology MCAS in the spring of the same school year. LHS offers physics to seniors so students who move to Lexington in high school from out of state can take — and hopefully pass — the physics MCAS and graduate.
“This limits what they can do in terms of group and interdisciplinary projects,” Strizhak said. “So taking away that requirement would free science educators.”
If Question 2 passes, Lexington High’s science curriculum could change, Strizhak told LexObserver.
The MCAS exams also don’t fully demonstrate students’ abilities, Strizhak argues, especially soft skills like communication and empathy. She said now is the time to ask ourselves, ‘what do we value?’
“It’s easy for adults who have taken the MCAS to brush it off and say ‘well I took it, why can’t they’ but the kid who really struggles doesn’t want to take it five times,” she said. “It’s demoralizing and we can do better for kids.”
Supporters of the ballot question have raised approximately $9.7 million, the Boston Globe reported. Public officials such as Representative Ayanna Pressley, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Senator Ed Markey support passing Question 2. Scruggs told LexObserver she’s “fairly confident it will pass.”
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, and the Boston Globe’s editorial board all support voting “no” on Question 2, as does former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who recently donated $2.5 million to the campaign.
James Conway, history teacher at Revere High School, opposes the MCAS ballot question because, like Horn, he argues the requirement instills equity across the state and maintains Massachusetts’ “record of excellence” in education.
“You want every kid who comes from a Massachusetts high school, regardless of what zip code they’re in, to have the same education, to be tested on the same standards, to have their diploma basically mean the same thing,” said Conway, who is also a member of Protect Our Kids’ Future, a coalition of local organizations, teachers, and elected officials who oppose passing Question 2.
By removing the goal of graduating as many students as possible by educating them to pass the MCAS, “the incentive structure to ensure that there is equity between affluent and not affluent districts falls away,” Conway said.
Question 2 would not abolish MCAS testing entirely. The federal government requires states to administer annual statewide assessments for specific grades and subject areas, which Massachusetts does by administering MCAS, Jacqueline Reis, communications director for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, told LexObserver.
The tests are administered online and students have as much time as they need in one school day to finish. If a student does not pass the test on their first try, they can retest up to four times — that’s what Shawn will do this fall in the hopes of passing the test’s English section. Or, students can appeal their score.
With the exception of English-language learners who are in their first year at Massachusetts schools, all ELL students must take the MCAS. At the high school level, math and science MCAS tests are available in Spanish. Students in grades three through eight will also be able to take math, science, and civics tests in Spanish beginning in 2025. ELL students are allowed to use bilingual word-to-word dictionaries and glossaries to complete the tests.
Students with learning and intellectual disabilities are also afforded various accommodations when taking the MCAS. In Lexington, most 10th-grade students who work with the LABBB Collaborative — the town’s special needs education service — take MCAS with accommodations. Students with disabilities are able to use text-to-speech readers, state-approved reference sheets, and paper-based tests, among other modifications to complete the exams.
“Really there is a wide safety net to catch the kids who are not traditionally capable of taking a standardized test,” Conway said.
Students who took the MCAS in the spring of 2024 needed to score 486 or higher on the English section, 486 or higher on the math section, and 470 or higher on the science and technology sections, to pass. Students who score between 470 and 485 on the 10th-grade English and/or math tests must fulfill the state’s educational proficiency plan requirements to ensure they are reaching grade-level expectations.
On the MCAS score cards parents receive, students’ scores are categorized into one of four tiers: not meeting expectations (scoring between 440 and 470), partially meeting expectations (scoring between 470 and 500), meeting expectations (scoring between 500 and 530), and exceeding expectations (scoring between 530 and 560). All students who scored exclusively in “meeting-” or “exceeding expectations” passed the MCAS, and some who scored on the higher end of “partially meeting expectations” passed.
Of the 596 Lexington High School 10th-graders who took the English section of the 2024 MCAS, 572 passed and 20 did not, according to Julie Hackett, superintendent of Lexington Public Schools. She told LexObserver that 575 10th-graders passed the math section and 18 did not, and 581 passed the science and technology section and 7 did not. Due to absences, one student did not take the English section, one did not take math, and one did not take science and technology.
Two first-year ELL students did not take the 10th-grade English MCAS in 2024, two did not take math, and three did not take science and technology. Of ELL students at Lexington High who took the 10th-grade MCAS in 2024, 32 percent scored “meeting-” or “exceeding expectations” in the English section and 58 percent scored in those categories for math.
Among the approximately 70,000 high school seniors in Massachusetts scheduled to graduate next spring, 91 percent have now passed the 10th-grade MCAS exams, up from 82 percent when they first took the tests in spring 2023, the Boston Globe reported. Approximately 16,000 10th-graders failed at least one portion of the 2024 exam, the Globe reported.
Read about all of the questions on the Massachusetts ballot on LexObserver’s ballot questions guide.
As a Lexington High science teacher who currently teaches 10th grade Biology, I feel the need to respond to this article and share my perspective on question 2 and its potential impact on students. Statements made in this article seem to imply that the science department wants question 2 to pass, because it would free science teachers to do more interdisciplinary work and would allow us to make changes to our curriculum. To my knowledge, a survey to solicit science department opinions on this matter was not conducted, and in fact, I know many members of my department who are strongly opposed to question 2. Many of us feel that accountability at the high school level is critically important, and without MCAS as a graduation requirement, our most struggling learners will not receive the support that they need and deserve. Regarding curriculum changes, there have been conversations happening at the district and school level for the past couple of years that involve major curriculum changes in science. Potential changes include reducing the number of science credits needed for graduation, reducing credits per class from 5 or 6 to 4, reducing science class time 20%-33% depending on the class level, offering a greater number of electives, and more. These proposed changes (many of which are not universally supported by science staff) have never been dependent on the passage of question 2. I hope my comment provides some needed clarity around the issues mentioned in this article.
As a parent of a Lexington student with a learning disability, I have a different view than the proponents of Question 2. And I am disappointed that LexObserver has led the article on Question 2 with the emotional quote “If you screw it up, you can screw up your future”. Rather, if we as voters screw this up, we can screw up the futures of today’s children, by not taking responsibility for providing them with the education they need.
The MCAS graduation requirement was implemented as part of education reform laws made to address inequality in education across the state of Massachusetts. It brought a consistent baseline requirement to education in the Commonwealth, benefiting students in districts that did not hold their students to the same standards as a district like Lexington may have. Massachusetts now has among the best public schools in the country and the highest high school graduation rate, at over 96%. Doing away with MCAS would mean a return to the days of hyperlocal decisions on what constitutes sufficient learning, without accountability. This would eliminate confidence that a Massachusetts high school diploma indicates basic competence in English, math and science at a 10th grade level. For students who struggle, whether due to a learning disability, a disadvantaged background, or other reason, eliminating these standards would allow schools to graduate students without addressing the underlying issues that prevent them from mastering the basic skills they need. This would be an abdication of the responsibility of public education.
Today’s students are also the ones who were hit the most by the learning losses from school closures during COVID: 10th graders were in 5th grade, and 6th graders were in 1st grade in 2020. Schools, teachers, and students have been working hard since the pandemic to make up for time lost in middle and elementary school; now is not the right time to remove an objective measure of whether these efforts are succeeding. An external measure like the MCAS provides valuable data for both parents and educators to identify where more support is needed. Doing away with the graduation requirement would allow schools to not provide that support in the last 2 years of a student’s public education. That would be a disservice to those who need the most help. While there may always be room for improvement in what is in the test, or in how it is administered, doing away with the MCAS altogether is not the way to go.
We have a child who has struggled with reading due to a language based learning disability. The MCAS may be stressful to take in the future. That does not mean that I don’t want my children to take it, nor that I don’t want them to be held to its standards for high school graduation. Instead, we will use the objective assessment provided by MCAS to understand our children’s academic performance and to advocate for appropriate support when needed, to make sure they are ready for challenges they will face after graduation.
See this editorial in the Globe (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/06/opinion/mcas-ballot-question-2-high-school-graduation-teachers-union/) and this piece in the NY Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/opinion/massachusetts-ballot-question-2.html) for more information. Please vote NO on Question 2.
Please vote NO on Question 2. MCAS is an objective measurement tool, and it needs to be maintained at least for this purpose. It may be imperfect, but Question 2 is not about making the test better: it is about eliminating its relevance. A yes vote on Question 2 is very regressive, negatively affecting the poor neighborhoods in MA. In a state that prides itself on government accountability, it is hard for me to see how federal and state funds can be directed toward needy neighborhoods, if a method of ensuring some level of minimal accountability is not simultaneously implemented. As history teaches, in the span of 4-6 years, people will become suspicious of misallocation of funds and lose trust in the educational system. The poor will suffer then, for some undescribed benefit now. Vote NO on Question 2.
There are a few misconceptions about Ballot Question 2 in the comments. The biggest misconception is that it gets rid of MCAS. Nothing is further from the truth – we will still have MCAS. MCAS can still be used to evaluate student progress and school progress on educating ALL students. There is no loss of accountability on the district or town level.
Right now, as student does not need a passing grade on 3rd grade MCAS to go on to 4th grade. They also do not need to pass 8th grade MCAS to go to high school.
What Question 2 does is simply extend that to high school students. It says that we value more what happens to a student during their four years of high school, we value not only reading and math and science, but history and civics and arts and languages, and we are not going to say that 7 days of testing can keep them from graduating.
As an LHS science department educator myself and with respect to my Science Department college, the high school science department has a vast array of opinions. There are many members of the department who find that the requirement to teach to the MCAS test constrains our creativity as we seek to create relevant, exciting, engaging classes for students.
Getting rid of MCAS as a graduation requirement is better for kids. It takes a stress off. It let’s them build a portfolio of experiences that take them on to their next stage in life, without them being held back by a test with known biases and flaws.
I do not understand how you can assess something without measuring it. Can it be true that the only assessment of LHS we get is Boston Magazine?
The history of MCAS is that shortly after it was passed (in exchange for $1b of add’l state funding) Mass went to the top of the national rankings. This was not an accident. The test highlighted where issues were.
The test is a messenger. If kids with severe ADHD need exemptions let’s focus on that. As M.Horn says in article the downside of getting rid of MCAS is way higher than the upside.