The high-stakes testing program for graduating seniors in Massachusetts is about to collide head-on with Gov. Mitt Romney's austerity budget proposal, AFT affiliates across the state warn.

Faced with a $2 billion budget shortfall, Romney has left taxes untouched in his two-year fiscal plan, opting instead to ax his way to a balanced budget. This poses a direct threat to the types of supports that students, particularly at-risk students, need to succeed on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), which students must pass as a graduation requirement. Likely casualties under the governor's budget are research-proven literacy programs, smaller class sizes, competitive salaries for educators working in urban districts, after-school assistance and full-day kindergarten, says Massachusetts Federation of Teachers president Kathleen Kelley, stressing that cuts of this nature are a recipe for failure on future rounds of the state's make-or-break exam.

"The governor's plan will mean 10 percent to 20 percent cuts for urban districts," Kelley warns. "We have reached a point where we are starting to renege on the investment we made in these kids. There is no question that the urban districts will be hurt on future exams if the budget proposal goes through."

The latest MCAS results show that 78 percent of Boston seniors passed the exams, and the urban district has made progress in closing the achievement gap between whites and minority groups. But that progress could be stymied or reversed under Romney's budget, which not only cuts programs across the board but also eliminates focused assistance to schools and districts serving disadvantaged students.

"If there's any message behind the exit exams, it's that more resources need to be directed to these districts," Kelley says. "Otherwise, class sizes will get larger, you'll see layoffs of staff and cuts in all of the things that we know work when it comes to raising achievement."

Many of these problems were anticipated in a recent MFT position paper on the high-stakes exit exam. The paper argues against the use of only one instrument for making high-stakes decisions and points to "the continued lack of sufficient support for those students having the most difficulty reaching the standards."   [Barbara McKenna / AFT On Campus]

[May 15, 2003]