Test of Leadership

I don’t write too often about the looniness of Western Massachusetts, although with five colleges in the vicinity, we’ve had our share of vapid anti-war static. Comfortable, well-heeled white students are almost expected to confront authority and buck the system. It’s quite another thing when elected officials – the putative leaders of the land – openly disregard both the letter and the spirit of settled law.

Here in the Bay State, high-school seniors (starting this year) must pass a standardized test known as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) to graduate. The MCAS is in two parts, testing both math and verbal skills, and is geared to a 10th-grade skill level. If students fail the MCAS in the 10th grade, they can take the test again…and again….and again….and again….sixth time’s the charm….until they pass sometime before the end of the senior year. The law states that if a Massachusetts student fails to pass this exam, they do not graduate and do not receive a diploma.

That is, unless your school district decides to ignore the law. From the Boston Globe “Berkshire District to Flout MCAS Rule”:

A sixth school district has decided to award diplomas to high school students who don't pass the MCAS - a move state education officials say is illegal.

The Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee voted 9-1 last week to give the so-called local diplomas to seniors who meet other graduation requirements but have not passed both the English and math sections of the 10th-grade MCAS.

Beginning with this year's seniors, students are required to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam to graduate. But a handful of districts, including Cambridge, have said they'll give their own diplomas despite the state's mandate.

''These students have been in our school and if they do pass all their courses, it does seem like they should be able to get their diploma,'' said school committee Chairman Stephen Bannon. ''We're not snubbing our nose at the Department of Education. We're just in disagreement over what the correct way of handling this is.''

Whatever that means.

Everybody hates the MCAS requirement. School administrators want to move kids through the system, teachers don’t want any objective measurement of educational proficiency, parents don’t want their kids held back and students want to get out of school. But the state of Massachusetts proposed that a high-school diploma should mean something; in the case of the MCAS, that a high school senior can read and do math on a sophomore level. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so, given the 90% vote at Berkshire to utterly disregard state law.