My family chose to live in Plymouth out of love for the community, and its wonderful neighborhood schools. This November we all have a chance to help the students and educators inside them by voting yes on Question 2. Voting yes would maintain MCAS in our schools, while simply removing the state Department of Education’s demand that high school students reach the ever-increasing score it sets to receive a diploma. We’d no longer rely on a test written and scored outside the state that claims to tell educators what they know, and what students and families already know. A yes vote on Question 2 returns the question of what a student needs to do to graduate to our schools, community, and teachers. Students will earn a high school diploma the way they have for decades – by passing courses in a modern curriculum developed and delivered by professionals who work here in Plymouth and know our kids.
Since this graduation requirement was introduced, national test scores for Massachusetts have not changed relative to those in other states. This mandate has done nothing to close achievement gaps between different groups – partially because students in private schools do not take the MCAS. There is evidence that this mandate preserves or even widens these gaps. Results, which are given to educators and parents like me six months after the test, add little to what families or educators already know about what students have learned. Colleges know the MCAS doesn’t tell us much: Harvard and other great colleges have accepted students regardless of passing the MCAS based on GPA and coursework. Students who didn’t receive the MCAS passage scored run successful businesses and prosper in life.
This graduation requirement nonetheless destroys opportunities for students based on an increasingly arbitrary test score. It directs taxpayer funds to testing companies to write and score tests – while selling resources and training on how to beat the test they write. It provides bureaucrats distant from Plymouth an excuse to interfere in our schools and undermine its teachers. A vote of yes on 2 will end this requirement, and help our students, schools, and community for generations to come.
– Brian Fitzgerald