SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - The debate over how Massachusetts students earn a diploma is heating up after the state released a new plan to replace the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, as a graduation requirement. Now, The Massachusetts Teachers Association said the proposal could still bring high-stakes testing back in another form, despite what voters approved in 2024.

The MTA said the state’s new graduation proposal misses the moment created by question 2. They claim it ended MCAS as a requirement on paper but could replace it with a new round of state exams.

The report laid out what could replace MCAS, still requiring a solid core of classes, but putting more weight on real-world work, like capstone projects and portfolios. It also called for expanding guidance and counseling for students.

But the MTA said the report undercuts those ideas by recommending new, state-designed standardized exams. They also said it gives the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) too much control over how districts would carry it out.

MTA said those tests would essentially bring back an MCAS-style barrier, and they believe it would derail the ‘vision of a graduate’ goals the state has laid out things like critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and real-world problem-solving.

“Our members and so many others worked very hard to finally get rid of what we saw as a destructive focus on high stakes testing and we felt like we opened up a real space to have a conversation about what do we want our students to get from high school and how to we assess that in better ways and unfortunately the core of this proposal is about new testing,” said Max Page the President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

The union also warned about cost, saying schools are already facing budget pressure, and the state can’t roll out new requirements without funding for staffing, training, and smaller class sizes.

Coming up later on Western Mass News at 10 and 11, we’ll have more reaction from education leaders and what they want the governor to change before anything becomes final.

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