Educators organize around the Thrive Act

By: Jonathan Ng

Published: March 2023

The fight over high-stakes testing is coming to a head this spring as MTA educators organize over legislation that would remove the punitive aspects of the MCAS exams and end a state receivership model that has plagued several Massachusetts cities, including communities with racial and ethnic diversity.

Educators’ unions – from Greater New Bedford to Belmont to Tewksbury – are organizing to inform residents and galvanize support for An Act Empowering Students and Schools to Thrive.

The MTA-backed legislation, known as the Thrive Act, proposes to end the state’s high school competency determination based on MCAS, eliminate state receiverships and establish a commission to study and recommend a better accountability system.

The high-stakes test has been a hot-button issue for students and educators since the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, which created the MCAS accountability system.

MTA locals over the past several months have started organizing around the issue and are talking to co-workers, friends and family, neighbors and local elected officials about the issue.

The fight to pass the Thrive Act is a critical step toward ending the harmful impacts of high-stakes testing on students and communities across Massachusetts, said Malden Education Association President Deb Gesualdo.

"MCAS is toxic, high-stakes testing and does not actually measure what is going on in a school and it doesn’t measure a student’s success academically," Gesualdo said in an interview, adding that MCAS takes at least 10 percent of a student’s school year. "That’s time that could be spent teaching and learning," she said.

The MEA has been distributing to its members anti-MCAS stickers and T-shirts that read: "In Massachusetts, we resist the MCAS." MEA educators wear the T-shirts on MCAS testing days.

"We are bringing awareness to the fact that parents and caregivers have the right to refuse to have their child take the MCAS if their child is in grades three through eight," Gesualdo said. "We are posting on social media, we’re talking to friends, family, and neighbors across the Malden community and educating them on their rights around MCAS and giving them resources to help write opt-out letters and educate people on the language of the Thrive Act."

The MEA is also working on passing a resolution to take a stance against high-stakes testing and will bring it forward to the Malden School Committee, so that local officials can take an official stance as well.

Conner Bourgoin, president of the Tewksbury Teachers Association, said local members are signing a petition to stop the MCAS from "creating a false sense of our students’ and schools’ aptitude."

The MCAS, Bourgoin said, "measures our students’ academic and intellectual worth in a one-size-fits-all standardized test, and our school resources and cultures depend on those problematic testing results."

A key component of the Thrive Act would end receivership, which is a central pain point for educators in this fight.

Massachusetts has placed three school districts in state receivership since 2011, including Lawrence in 2011, Holyoke in 2015 and Southbridge in 2016, which has eroded the voice of communities in school policy. In Southbridge, the administration of the state-appointed receiver recently failed to lock down Southbridge High School, or alert the staff, after a student was seen in a social media post showing him with a gun in the building.

"To see so many other districts go under receivership – which is not good for any educator, student or community member – and to see that happen to districts that have higher poverty rates and/or higher numbers of students of color attending is disheartening and simply wrong," said Bourgoin. "Our students deserve better from the state, and ending the MCAS requirements, which target certain communities, is a major first step."

Tewksbury educators are planning to host future actions and discussions within their membership to showcase their support for the Thrive Act being passed and signed into law.

The legislation was introduced and sponsored by state Senator Jo Comerford (D-Northampton), Senator Adam Gomez (D-Springfield), Senator Liz Miranda (D-Boston), Representative Jim Hawkins (D-Attleboro) and Representative Sam Montaño (D-Boston).

MTA Vice President Deb McCarthy, who as a teacher in Hull became a "conscientious objector" and refused to administer the MCAS for two years, said the damage of the accountability system is clear.

The focus on testing has detoured school districts from educating the whole child, McCarthy said, replacing best practices and pedagogy with a narrowed and linear curriculum that is centered on the answers to a high-stakes assessment. The state needs an authentic system that is relevant and centered on students, she said.

"Every student should be allowed to thrive," she said. "Public education should not be a system that ranks, sorts, punishes and shames. We must end the harm and replace the punitive, high-stakes accountability system. Our students are much more than a score."

For more information on the Thrive Act, please visit massteacher.org/highstakes.