Senate budget chief: Business community fight against MCAS repeal was lackluster
Photo | Courtesy of State House News Service
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues
The Senate budget chief criticized the state's business community on Thursday for allegedly not fighting hard enough against last fall's ballot question that eliminated the use of the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement.
"I'm very disappointed in the lack of business community involvement in the MCAS test repeal. The silence was deafening from the business community," Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues said on Thursday at an event in Boston hosted by Associated Industries of Massachusetts.
Rodrigues was among the lawmakers who opposed the ballot measure which decoupled the exam from the state's long-held standards for who gets a diploma in Massachusetts. In the aftermath of the question passing, lawmakers, top education officials, teachers unions, and Gov. Maura Healey's administration are all trying to answer the question of what the state's standards should look like now.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education advanced draft regulations this week to create minimum coursework requirements and other standards; and Healey signed an executive order last month creating a council tasked with creating a new permanent statewide standard that complies with the voter-approved law.
Stephanie Swanson, executive vice president of government affairs at AIM, asked Rodrigues how he sees the Senate's role in maintaining high state education rankings without the MCAS graduation requirement.
"Last year, the commonwealth approved a ballot question through the voters that repealed the requirement for high school students to pass the MCAS exam in order to graduate. Since that had been in place, Massachusetts is number one in education and student success. We are worried that that could be at risk with that change," Swanson said.
Rodrigues replied that the state's high education rankings, in his view, are due to a population that values education; high state investment in education; and "a strong system of accountability and standards" that included the MCAS exam graduation standard.
"We just took that third leg of the school away," Rodrigues said. "And I'll be honest with you, and bluntly to the business community -- I was very disappointed in the lack of business community involvement in the MCAS test repeal."
He added, "The MCAS was put in place because of the business community, because of all of you in this room, to ensure that we're investing all of this money in education, we want to make sure we have a strong system of accountability and standards."
The primary opponents to the MCAS ballot question were business groups.
Most of the money that drove the No on 2 campaign came from a small group of business executives and groups. Of the $3.1 million in receipts the campaign filed leading up to the Nov. 5 election, some of its biggest donors -- each giving more than $100,000 -- were Charles River Ventures partner Richard Burnes, self-employed engineer Raymond Stata, Berkshire Partners senior advisor David Peeler, Eastern Bank CEO Robert Rivers, and General Catalyst Partners advisor Paul Sagan.
There were $50,000 contributions from the New York-based business group Education Reform Now Advocacy Inc., the Mass. High Technology Council and from self-employed consultant Anthony Helies. Donors who gave $25,000 were AIM itself, Charlesbank partner Michael Eisenson, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Alnivo Therapeutics CEO Michael Jacobson, retiree Charles Longfield, and the Mass. Business Alliance For Education (MBAE).
The donation that caught the most headlines: $2.5 million from billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg to make sure MCAS testing remained a high school graduation requirement.
"I will say, for the record, AIM was out front on the No on 2 campaign last year," Swanson replied to Rodrigues' comments on Thursday.
Swanson said AIM and other business groups were also working with education officials on interim solutions for statewide standards, while Healey's council completes their work on creating a new system.
"We are also working with a lot of our business community member associations on what to do sort of in the gap. That council is a two-year recommending body. What do we do for the current graduating class? I'm just hoping that the Legislature is thinking about that as well," she said.
MBAE could not be reached for comment and the Greater Boston Chamber declined to comment on Rodrigues' remarks.
Rodrigues said he was also glad the governor signed the executive order to reimagine the state standards.
He cast the ballot question effort, which was pushed by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, as an effort by the union to avoid accountability for teachers.
"Let's face it, the teachers are a very strong, powerful voice. They don't want to be held accountable. They don't want to have these standards, and who does, right? No one likes accountability on them. You know, accountability is good for you, but not for me, right? Those of us that are held accountable every two years at the ballot box, we're held accountable. So we're concerned," he said.
The MTA responded to Rodrigues by asserting that voters approved the ballot question not to undermine accountability, but because "MCAS exams were not a useful or fair way to determine whether a student was prepared to graduate from high school."
"Senator Michael Rodrigues is mistaken when he says that educators are against accountability, and his characterization is incredibly insulting. Massachusetts has a rigorous educator accountability system, and it is shameful for anyone to suggest otherwise. We have the best-trained educators in the nation. We have statewide standards that apply to every type of course, are written for every grade, and apply to every district. Those standards are regarded as among the highest in the nation and are emulated by those states that seek to be the best, which means being more like Massachusetts," MTA President Max Page and Vice President Deb McCarthy said in a statement.
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