The state raised the MCAS graduation requirements. Here's what that means for Fall River.

FALL RIVER — The state recently increased the MCAS scores required for Massachusetts high school students to graduate, a move local educators have decried as harmful at worst and an unwelcome distraction at best.

“Some people think raising the bar is magically going to make students do better, but I don’t think that’s true,” said Keith Michon, president of the Fall River Educators Association, the union representing Fall River Public School teachers and other educators like paraprofessionals.

Students at any Massachusetts school that receives public funds are required to take the MCAS standardized tests beginning in third grade. In order to receive a high school diploma, they must earn a passing score on the grade 10 MCAS tests in English, math and science/technology. Students can retake the 10th grade exams, also called the Competency Determination (CD), up to four more times if they do not score high enough initially.

At a recent meeting, the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to raise the minimum score that this year's incoming freshman class and at least the following four classes will have to score on the MCAS test in order to graduate high school, based on a recommendation from Commissioner Jeff Riley.

Riley maintains that raising the required passing scores would allow schools to better assess whether their students are on the right track for success after high school.

He had previously told the board that “only 11% [of] students in the class of 2011 who scored at the current passing standard in mathematics went on to enroll in a four-year college in Massachusetts, and only 5% graduated from a four-year college within seven years."

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Students will now be required to earn a scaled score of 486 on both the English and math exams, or 470 with the completion of an educational proficiency plan, and 470 on science and technology/engineering tests.

The score thresholds are currently 472 for English, or 455 with an educational proficiency plan, 486 for math, or 469 with an educational proficiency plan, and 220 for science/technology for students who took a test by February 2020.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association, the statewide union with which the FREA is affiliated, has long been opposed to MCAS. They organized a protest outside the BESE meeting this past week and members offered testimony during the meeting.

“As a union, we’ve been against MCAS in general and especially the high stakes nature of it,” said Michon. “We think raising the passing score is only going to hurt our students.”

He said teachers have told him about seeing added anxiety from students around MCAS, starting even before they take their first test in third grade because they start hearing about how important is it well before that. Increasing the score needed to graduate could seriously discourage students, he said.

“My biggest fear is a student who’s borderline (going to pass) might now see that threshold raise and just give up. And I would hate to see that happen,” he said.

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Fall River has among the lowest MCAS scores of any district in the state. According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 32% of 10th graders in Fall River Public Schools scored as meeting or exceeding expectations in English and 18% were meeting or exceeding expectations in math on the 2021 test, compared to 64% in English statewide and 52% in math. In 2019, before the pandemic brought a state-wide dip in MCAS scores, 38% of Fall River 10th graders scored as meeting or exceeding expectations in English and 29% scored that way in math.

Michon said Fall River teachers are already forced to spend too much valuable classroom time on preparing students for the MCAS, a pressure that doesn’t fall on schools in wealthier communities with better-performing schools.

“When you go into these (other) classrooms, they’re not filling out MCAS-type bubbles. They’re doing authentic activities,” he said. “We’re always under so much pressure to perform on this test that we’ve already been as focused as you can be on passing the test. Everything we do is MCAS-like questions, MCAS-like tests.”

Ultimately, Michon said, the test is a poor method of gauging what goes on in Fall River schools.

“I tell you that our teachers and our students are much better than what those ranks show. I don’t think they reflect the quality of instruction or the strength of our students here in Fall River,” he said.

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Matt Desmarais, principal at B.M.C. Durfee High School, acknowledged that Durfee already has relatively low rate of students reaching the required MCAS scores.

“We know that many of our students struggle with reaching that standard, it’s not unlike any other urban district with the challenges they face,” he said.

And, learning loss driven by the pandemic will certainly not help the district and school improve its scores.

“The timing of this adjustment is a little curious to me given what students have been going through the past few years,” he said.

Still, Desmarais said educators are ready to meet the challenge. He said he doesn’t expect teachers to change their curricula to adapt to the new heightened requirements, saying that Fall River already has strong curricula, especially in English.

“We’re focused on the work that needs to be done already,” he said. “While it’s certainly not something I’m excited about, it’s the reality we’re facing right now.”

Material from the State House News Service was used in this report.

Audrey Cooney can be reached at acooney@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Fall River educators decry raising MCAS graduation requirements