July 2, 2024

Sadly, the MCAS ballot-question battle is on

Voters should press Massachusetts Teachers Association members on their union’s effort to do away with the statewide test as a graduation requirement, since that would leave the state without any mode of assuring that a high school diploma means the same from school district to school district.

It’s now all but certain: The MCAS graduation requirement will be on the November ballot.

The prospects have now ended for a compromise that would have precluded an expensive and time-, energy-, and attention-consuming ballot campaign. The Massachusetts Teachers Association has declared it is going forward with its anti-MCAS ballot quest.

As voters evaluate the competing arguments, it will be vitally important to separate the factual from the false. After all, the MCAS exam, which took effect as a graduation requirement for the class of 2003, has been a lynchpin of the education-reform efforts of the past three-plus decades, which have helped establish Massachusetts schools as among the top-performing in the country. That being the case, you’d think the teachers union would have some awfully compelling, non-self-interested reasons to mess with success.