State's Schools Flunking -- Report

With a crucial decision looming on a ballot question to keep or eliminate Massachusetts’ only uniform high school graduation requirement, a new report has sounded a red alert. It reveals that half of all state high schools do not meet the state’s recommended course of study - known as MassCore - established to ensure that high school graduates are well prepared for college and career.

The report was published by Voices for Academic Equity, a group of nonprofit and community leaders representing classroom educators, school leaders, parents, advocates, and employers committed to the promise of equitable and high-quality public education. It is the first in-depth research on the number of high schools in Massachusetts that are allowing students to graduate without completing the state’s recommended coursework.

The report will be discussed in depth during a webinar scheduled for 2 p.m. on Thursday, October 17. Register here.

“We know that high school courses play an important role in students’ success, so what programs does the state have in place so all high school students have access to college- and career-ready courses?” said Erin Cooley, Managing Director of Education Reform Now, a member of the coalition. “MassCore was intended to offer some degree of equitable access to course work across the state’s high schools, but instead adoption is scattershot, ultimately creating an unequal playing field for our kids. In an economy in which 1 in 4 jobs are expected to be disrupted in the next five years, the urgency for Massachusetts students to prepare for the next phase of their lives cannot be overstated.”

MassCore, adopted in 2007, includes four years of English and math, three years of lab-based science and history, two years of the same foreign language, one year of an arts program, and five additional "core" courses such as business education, health, and/or technology. While not every school’s data was available, the report’s sample covered 79 percent of public high schools serving 92 percent of public school students.

The report found:

Half of the state’s public high schools do not have graduation requirements that meet MassCore’s recommended program of study;

In public high schools where student enrollment is less than 40% low income, less than half (46%) require students to complete MassCore in order to graduate; adoption of MassCore is even lower (39%) in public high schools where less than 20% of students are considered low-income;

Based on enrollment, some differences appeared for large high schools, where less than half (42%) were not requiring students to complete MassCore in order to graduate, and for extra large schools, where the majority (61%) were not requiring students to complete MassCore in order to graduate.

“It is troubling that more affluent communities are less likely to require MassCore, because it increases the possibility that marginalized students in those schools are left behind and not prepared for postsecondary study,” Cooley said. “We know anecdotally that lower income students in high income school systems don’t get the same access to tutors or academic enrichment programs, or take as many Advanced Placement courses as their higher income peers.”

The report also highlighted several factors to consider if state policymakers attempt to make MassCore mandatory statewide, including how to ensure MassCore provides an equitable lens through which to view student readiness, required increases in staffing, costs, school facility upgrades and how much time it would take to implement.

In addition, the report makes the following recommendations to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE):

Collect, for the first time, data about which districts require MassCore as part of their graduation requirements,

Collect more accurate data about which students complete MassCore,

Gather data from districts, through existing reporting tools, regarding what barriers prevent them from requiring MassCore in order to graduate, and

Require high schools to provide translated versions of all documents that explain high school graduation requirements in the languages most common in their communities.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has established only three statewide requirements to graduate from a high school: passing the 10th grade MCAS exams, as well as being taught, but not necessarily passing, physical education, American History and social science. Massachusetts is one of only two states that allow districts to decide what courses a student must pass to graduate. As a result, there can be a massive variance in students’ learning experiences between districts or even within them. This is potentially limiting for students as reaching these MassCore guidelines is the minimum undergraduate admissions standard for Massachusetts state universities and University of Massachusetts campuses.

While the battle to determine the fate of the 10th-grade assessment continues, this analysis reveals that MassCore has yet to reach its full potential. As educators and policymakers try to remedy the educational regression following the pandemic and create a more equitable system for all students, reviewing and improving MassCore will prove instrumental. For Massachusetts to hold on to its title as number one in the nation, informed and well-researched decisions on Massachusetts’s future must be made.

This is the second report examining the impact of MassCore on public education. An earlier report - The Courses They Take - found there are equity shortcomings inherent in Massachusetts’s opt-in approach. Significant percentages of high school students are graduating having not completed MassCore and as a result, are missing out on the benefits this program of study offers in terms of college and career preparedness — benefits that can have life-changing implications for students’ future pathways and earnings.

For more information about MassCore - https://www.doe.mass.edu/ccte/ccr/masscore/