Tutwiler Also Responds to Petition Before Haverhill School Committee
State Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler, in a one-on-one interview with WHAV Wednesday, defended the state’s Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System—or MCAS—graduation requirement, saying students won’t otherwise take the test seriously.
A ballot question voters will consider by Tuesday would, if passed, remove the graduation requirement. Massachusetts is just one of fewer than 10 states that impose exit exam requirements for students to graduate. Tutwiler, however, told WHAV MCAS will become “useless” if the graduation requirement is removed.
“Students will not take it with the same level of seriousness as they would if it’s a graduation requirement,” he said. “That was the case before the assessment because of a requirement. You had about half of students meeting standards or performing proficiently on it. The minute it became a requirement, literally the next year you had about 90% of students performing on a level of proficiency or passing the assessment because they took it seriously.”
WHAV reported earlier that Haverhill School Committee members last Thursday declined to take a position on a resolution from member Yonnie Collins which called the test “punitive” and that it “exacerbates” some students’ “intellectual limitations.” Tutwiler took issue with the description and intent.
“I’m not sure that I understand the punitive argument, particularly given that 99% of students who meet their local requirements also pass the assessment,” he said. “Only 700 students out of 70,000 are actually prohibited from earning their diploma because of the MCAS.”
He said these standards are the most “critical things” a student should know relating to reading, writing, arithmetic and an “understanding of the world around them in science.”
“While I would be the first to say it is not a perfect assessment, I would also say it’s a very good one,” he told WHAV. “It’s not designed to assess every learning standard; it’s designed to assess what we call in education speak ‘power standards.’”
Communities across the Commonwealth utilize MCAS as well as their own local requirements in parity to measure successful student performance. In Haverhill, the other requirement for Haverhill High School students is for students to earn 20 credits in courses, including four years of English, three years of Social Studies, mathematics and science among others.
Tutwiler said MCAS has worked well. “What the ballot question proposes is not a system. It actually deconstructs the current system and provides a scenario where there could be as many as 400 different definitions of what it means to graduate and earn a diploma in Massachusetts, and we don’t think that’s appropriate.”
The system, Tutwiler said, has evolved since its inception in 1993 and first exam in 1998 to better reflect experiences in the classroom and is “an important piece of the accountability metric” for districts.
State education officials have not publicly said how they may handle the potential change.
Even if the standard is removed, students who perform well enough receive a John and Abigail Adams scholarship. The program awards credit for up to eight semesters of undergraduate education at a Massachusetts state college or university for students who score within the top 25% of their class.