We, the Northampton School Committee, have joined with the Massachusetts Teachers Association and scores of other organizations and leaders across the commonwealth to endorse the Thrive Act because the failed 30-year experiment of testing, punishing and the privatization of testing needs to end.
Introduced by state Sens. Jo Comerford, Adam Gomez, and Liz Miranda, and state Reps. James Hawkins and Sam Montano, the Thrive Act will:
■Replace the MCAS graduation requirement with one that allows students’ districts to certify that they have satisfactorily completed coursework showing mastery of the skills, competencies and knowledge required by the state standards.
■Eliminate state receiverships and reinstate democratic control to communities and school committees.
■Establish a commission to create a new, whole-child system of assessing our schools, building on important developments in our state and nation, which can be implemented in coming years.
You can read the entire act online at: malegislature.gov/Bills/193/HD3162.
Students, communities, and learning deserve to be placed front and center. To do this, districts need evaluation and accountability requirements that can focus on supporting locally led school improvement plans while still aligning with federal law. Many who support MCAS testing do so because of the utility of a standard assessment that can compare student achievement across the state and identify inequities. While we are not against standard assessments, Massachusetts is one of only eight states in the country that links test results to graduation. By decoupling assessments from graduation requirements, we remove a useless barrier that stands in the way for many of high school graduation.
Districts with large populations of historically marginalized students suffer the most from the negative aspects of the current testing requirements, through receiverships and barriers to graduation. To avoid these pitfalls of biased high-stakes assessments and increase equity in our schools, we need developmentally appropriate and holistic approaches to capturing what children know and can do.
We are grateful to state Sen. Jo Comerford and all the legislative sponsors who have brought forward this necessary and forward-thinking action. We can and must do better for all the children of the Commonwealth.
The Northampton School Committee: Gwen Agna, At Large; Aline Davis, At Large; Holly Ghazey, Ward 2; Kaia Goleman, Ward 7; Dina Levi, Ward 5; Margaret Miller, Ward 6; Meg Robbins, Ward 1; Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra; Emily Szerafy-Cox, Ward 3; Mike Stein, Ward 4.