Last year, voters decided to throw out the MCAS test as a graduation requirement, leaving Massachusetts to rethink how students demonstrated readiness for a high school diploma.
Now, Gov. Maura Healey has unveiled a proposed framework. It brings back tests in the form of end-of-course exams, but adds a graduation project requirement, emphasizing pathways to demonstrated competency and real-world skills.
Supporters say it modernizes how we assess learning; critics worry it could be inconsistent or create new gaps, and some teachers who were glad to see the MCAS go aren’t happy about the new tests.
Amanda Seider, regional executive director of OneGoal Massachusetts and a member of the K-12 Statewide Graduation Council, joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to break down what this means for students. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: I just laid out the vaguest details of what the new framework is. Can we start with an overview for people who haven’t been following this closely? What are the biggest changes in Gov. Healey’s proposed framework, compared to the old MCAS?
Amanda Seider: Absolutely. As you noted, the previous framework was anchored on the MCAS exam as the state’s graduation requirement, and that was it. What is different about this set of proposed requirements — and I’ll emphasize that these are still proposed — is that it would really offer a three-part framework for thinking about a more holistic approach to assessing student readiness for college, career and life beyond high school.
The first would be to step back and say, “What is the right foundation of learning that our students should have?” The framework introduces a proposed course of study that would make sure that all students receive an educational foundation that is aligned with enrollment and admission to our state university system. That’s important because we do want all students to graduate from high school with all options available to them.
The second bucket, and the one that I do think is probably getting the most attention, is around demonstrating mastery. How will we know that students have completed the work that they need to do to be ready? And that’s where end-of-course exams come in. The council and co-chairs have a lot of work ahead in the next six months to think about what that testing requirement might look like, but what we do know is that no one exam would hold students back from graduation.
The other element of that is the completion of a capstone or portfolio, and that’s really different from the previous requirement in that, again, while we don’t know exactly how those would be implemented yet, the co-chairs are really committed to having multiple ways that students could demonstrate their mastery beyond one single exam.
Finally, the piece that I’m most excited about is a group of proposed requirements that center on college, career and civic readiness. We know it’s not enough for students to have access to and achieve a great education; they have to know what to do with it. They have to understand how it connects to their purpose and the work that they see themselves doing in the future, both as a professional and as a person, and make sure that throughout their experience in high school, or even before, they are starting to take concrete steps in that direction.
Rath: I want to talk about that in more detail, but first, I want to land on one point about the testing that you said. I mentioned how there are new tests, but whatever form they’re going to be in, they will not be like the MCAS in that they will not be a test that can take you out of graduation.
Seider: Right. The council, co-chairs and the Governor have been clear that no single exam would stop a student from graduating. I think a difference in the approach here is that it would offer an opportunity for not just the students, but also the educators, to understand what level of learning has happened and make sure that students are getting the support they need ahead of their graduation.
Rath: Tell us more about this pathway to skills you were talking about.
Seider: Yeah, absolutely. As we think about college, career and civic readiness, again, we’re really excited that Massachusetts is moving in a direction of having all students develop a career and academic plan. It’s a really great way to ensure that the high school experience will include time, space, resources and support for students to think about their future. What will they do with this high school education?
Another core component of this work is that all students would be required to complete the FAFSA or MASA financial aid applications, with the very important caveat that every student would be able to opt out, given some of the sensitivity of that information. We know that when students complete the FAFSA, they’re far more likely to enroll and succeed in their college or career pathway, so that’s very important.
Students would be required to complete a financial literacy course. There was so much interest in making sure that all students are graduating from high school with some baseline of financial literacy, given how important that is.
Rath: As much as we can say — I know this is all actively being worked out — do you have a sense of, if these were to be implemented, what kind of changes students and families would notice in terms of day-to-day learning and support?
Seider: Yeah. I think it would create a lot more excitement and a lot more relevance for students as they’re moving through high school. One really great aspect of this entire project is that it really re-imagined the high school experience and what it could be. When we think about students moving through their high school experience with more access to advising, more access to conversations with trusted adults who understand how to help them connect with their purpose with different career options, and then, how to connect that to their coursework and chart a really actionable and effective plan to get there.
I do think that that’s something that we may aspire to in schools, and that certainly many hardworking educators are moving towards, but I don’t know that we have invested as much as we can in making sure that all students are getting that high-quality, post-secondary planning and support that they need. I think the connections between what students are learning and how to get to where they want to go are going to feel really different.
Rath: The district-to-district variation I know is considered a strength of the plan, but there are critics who say that there’s possibly a problem for expectations to remain fair and consistent, no matter where a student lives. Are there problems with not taking the old MCAS, one-size-fits-all approach?
Seider: To be clear, MCAS is still required at the district level in some districts across the states. The MCAS is no longer the state’s requirement for graduation. Many school districts across the commonwealth still require it as a part of their own district-level requirements.
I think the most important thing here from an equity perspective is making sure that all students, no matter where they live in the commonwealth, are getting access to the same holistic education, and then making sure that we have a window into that.
