Last month, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education heard MCAS scores trended down. Better data was expected following a recent cash infusion kicking-in and the end of the pandemic.
Next month, voters may strike language from state law tying test scores to graduation. The timing is auspicious. State regulations raise the threshold for high school competency going forward.
This year, BESE will consider adding a school climate survey to the accountability system’s core indicators, like test scores. Meanwhile, the search for a new education commissioner continues.
Ed Lambert, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, expects the next commissioner to have the final say on any “significant change” to the system.
Part of the committee that recommended the changes, he also serves on a statutory council that will advise on the next steps.
Changes require an amendment to our state plan and approval by the U.S. Department of Education.
Lambert foresees tracking “postgraduate outcomes,” like college persistence and wage rates, as indicators of school quality.
A decade before Education Reform in 1993, Massachusetts tracked postgraduate outcomes for each vocational career track. Federal Law required such reporting.
Massachusetts’s accountability system today descends from a data-based system of incentives created by Chapter 188 of 1985. And, that was the culmination of a scientific approach to education pioneered in the late 1800s.
The 1980s led to the “standards-based movement,” said Chris Domaleski, associate director for the Center for Assessment. He aided the committee reviewing Massachusetts’s accountability system and described earlier forms as “accreditation.”
State law once allowed BESE to defund any district under certain criteria: test scores below average by 20 points, a basic skills test failure rate 50 points above average, the dropout rate 50% above the previous year or if the teacher-to-student ratio was 20% below average. By the final metric, 31 districts, including charter schools, would be in jeopardy today. Attleboro, Belmont, Brockton, Bridgewater-Raynham, Hopkinton, Taunton and Wachusett were over 20% off in 2024.
Since then, the sanctions for underperformance changed. Backed by potential state takeover, the turnaround process now begins with goal setting, planning and oversight. Additional resources were promised too: “equal educational opportunity grants” based on the results of BESE’s annual assessment of schools and districts.
Domaleski said these systems use “a signaling function,” to highlight weaknesses. Data collected also informs policymakers. Finally, they prescribe supports for those furthest behind.
The last, he said, “is where systems tend to be in need of improvement” nationally. He encourages policymakers to theorize how actions interconnect with outcomes.
Strategizing effective support systems, he said, was “beyond the scope” of the September report. “A solution without that would be incomplete.”
Until 1993, BESE assessed the school funding formula annually. That year’s law shifted oversight to a Foundation Budget Review Committee that would meet once every three years. Now state law prohibits an FBRC from meeting more frequently than once a decade.
Domaleski notes, “It’s always important to evaluate the adequacy of funding.” He said tracking inputs to school success, “whether or not inputs are formally in accountability,” will be “important to the overall theory of action.”
Some inputs recommended by last month’s report include the percentage of diverse, qualified teachers; coursework in arts, technology or world languages; and educator absenteeism.
Massachusetts has experience with systematic outcome measurement. Even before 1985, DESE reported district-by-district results across 34 assessment instruments.
Afterwards, educator-committees developed the Massachusetts Education Assessment Program. MEAP aimed to evaluate curriculum effectiveness, in spite of differences between communities. A summary concludes “despite the strong influence of home and personal factors on students’ school performance, the role of school cannot be ignored.”
One era of accountability reporting compared results across four kinds of communities, reflecting differences educators still grapple with today.
UMass Amherst Professor Jack Schneider studies accountability systems nationwide. He sees an “unstated theory of change” in their design: Underperformance indicates people “are not applying their best effort.” The threat of consequences, therefore, supposedly incentivizes better effort. He said that’s “flawed.”
Educators, Schneider argues, are commonly underpaid and “motivated by the prospect of making a difference in young people’s lives.” Since test scores strongly correlate with demography, he said, test-based accountability systems aren’t measuring school quality.
“Inequality outside of schools comes pouring into the schools.”
Consequences aren’t being “directed at the worst schools,” Schneider said, just “the poorest communities.” He writes for MCIEA, a consortium of six public school districts and their teachers unions.
Change could tweak how underperformance is measured, alongside new incentives. DESE should “step in with support and resources rather than consequences and punishment,” he said.
Currently, aid to underperforming schools and districts, Schneider said, “isn’t really that helpful.”
MCIEA is developing performance assessments graded by teachers, hopefully with the same “reliability and validity [as] a standardized test.” “If voters decide to get rid of the MCAS graduation requirement,” Schneider speculated, MCIEA’s tests could suffice. The organization is working to demonstrate teacher graded testing could be ‘comparable’ across schools and districts.
“The true gold standard,” said Schneider, would involve trained teachers evaluating other classes’ work against a rubric and compilation of examples of past scoring. He likened this to the AP test.
Acknowledging the challenge of scalability, Schneider said, “it just depends on how much we care about accuracy and consistency.”
“Standardized testing costs a lot too,” he noted. The last state budget set aside $41.4 million for standardized testing. Schneider also sees a “cost to young people’s education.”
Frustrations with the MCAS may reflect its intended purpose: revealing educational inequality. As a public policy mechanism, it is meant to push us to excel. Those who don’t excel deserve the boost our accountability system promises to provide. Even so, MCAS is not draconian. A failsafe allows students who have no more than nine unexcused absences and a robust portfolio to graduate.
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