Ed Lambert is executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education.
Massachusetts is fortunate to have one of the best public education systems in the country. Our students consistently outperform their peers in other states. Unfortunately, our achievements are threatened by lowering standards, declining math and reading scores, the widening of socioeconomic achievement gaps, and now the loss of a common high school assessment that ensures all students are meeting a minimum standard to earn a diploma.
To ensure all students have attained the academic skills and knowledge that are necessary for their success in work and life, the state should adopt a new way of objectively measuring whether every student is ready for graduation. Whether in the medical profession, applying for a driver’s license, or beginning a career in the trades, standard assessments are used across a wide range of professions and functions to ensure critical standards are met. They should also be included as a part of a new statewide high school graduation requirement.
Across the nation, states are caving in to political pressure to weaken education standards instead of digging in to do the hard work to ensure all students achieve. Many are doing away with requirements that students pass uniform tests to show they’ve met a minimum academic standard to graduate from high school. Some are replacing tests with subjective class projects, presentations, portfolios of work, and other so-called performance-based assessment options. By their very nature, these don’t ensure a consistent bar is set for all students, can’t be objectively measured, and don’t assess the broad range of knowledge that students need for success no matter what path they choose after high school.
Massachusetts can maintain its national leadership in education by continuing to require that all students achieve a strong foundation in essential subjects like math, English, science, and history. The state’s economy, dependent on such knowledge-based industries as the life sciences, high tech, and health care, demands it. By upholding a high educational standard and having an accurate, uniform way of measuring whether students have achieved it, the state would protect the value of a high school diploma and send a signal that it believes all students can and must achieve.
The state cannot abandon its long-held commitment to ensuring all students meet a consistent, minimum standard in their core academic classes. Common assessments help guard against inequities by holding all students to the same standard. They ensure schools are delivering on their core function — teaching foundational academic knowledge and skills.
Some have proposed to replace the previous requirement that students pass the 10th-grade MCAS exams to graduate with a requirement that all students take a prescribed set of courses. Defining what coursework students should be exposed to, with some flexibility based on a student’s future college and career plans, is a sensible approach. However, the state cannot rely on subjective teacher grades, which vary in approach across schools and districts, and sometimes even within the same school, to measure whether students are mastering coursework content. Doing so would lead to a variable assessment system that would increase inequity.
Research shows evidence of grade inflation across the country in recent years, leading many students to believe they are ready for college or the workforce when in fact they are not. Massachusetts cannot rely on local grading policies to ensure all students are achieving at the levels they need to be successful after high school.
There need to be common assessments. While standardized tests like the MCAS, or some modified version of it, could accomplish this, there are other kinds of common assessments that should be considered, including standardized “end of course” exams in the core subject areas.
Governor Maura Healey’s K-12 Statewide Graduation Council is now considering the introduction of state-administered end-of-course assessments as “part of the graduation requirement” for high school, according to a recently released draft recommendation. While it is encouraging that end-of-course exams are on the table, they must count toward graduation in a meaningful way.
The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Business Roundtable, and Massachusetts Competitive Partnership are joining the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, which I lead, in calling for the state to require uniform assessments that give business leaders and higher education officials assurances that a diploma means something consistent across all cities and towns.
A new high school graduation standard should reflect the broad set of knowledge and skills that is needed for success in college, career, and life. It should include requirements that ensure the acquisition of experience and skills beyond core academic knowledge, yet not abandon a commitment to core academics.
One of the many things that Massachusetts got right in the Education Reform Act of 1993 was the requirement that all students meet a minimum bar of academic achievement to graduate from high school. As much of the nation lowers graduation standards, Massachusetts has an opportunity to restore its commitment to excellence in education.
