Thrive Act

Massachusetts has a responsibility to support schools and districts to improve educational experiences for students. However, the state uses two interconnected strategies – state takeovers of schools and districts and standardized testing – both in high stakes ways that do the opposite. High-stakes standardized testing harms all students and, for some students, disrupts their future lives. State takeovers disrupt whole communities’ educational programming and school-to-community connections. Both practices were mandated or prompted by federal law: both are political strategies, not educational strategies.

Massachusetts authorized state takeovers (“receivership”) of schools or districts in 2010 in order to compete for federal funds under the Race to the Top law. However, as the state does not have hundreds of teachers, counselors, and school administrators to deploy to such schools, state takeovers have been a lever for privatization. In the receivership schools and districts, the interventions have exacerbated segregation, forced out experienced educators and educators of color, narrowed the curriculum to focus on standardized test content, broken school-to-community connections, and stigmatized the districts.

State takeovers have not improved the educational experiences for students but have been successful at undermining democratic accountability, as districts in receivership no longer report to the locally elected School Committee. The 2010 law is unclear as to how schools and districts are identified for receivership (only majority BIPOC schools and districts so far) and offers no path out of receivership.

High-stakes standardized testing, such as the MCAS, does not measure a student’s ability to learn, capacity for effort, creativity, or perseverance, and it is not an accurate predictor of future academic or life success. MCAS is, however, very highly correlated with a family’s economic status.

Massachusetts is among only eight states that mandate passage of standardized testing as a requirement to graduate high school. This requirement harms every student in our state by inaccurately and incompletely assessing them, forcing the narrowing of the curriculum to focus on test content, and adding enormous amounts of purposeless and harmful stress to students’ lives, with impacts especially felt by students with Individualized Education Plans, English Language Learners, and BIPOC students.

Standardized testing has not been shown to improve educational outcomes, but has been used to mete out punishments and stigmas to schools, force schools toward privatization, undermine educators’ unions – all similar to receivership.

The Solution

In order to actually improve educational experiences for Massachusetts students, The Thrive Act includes immediate and long-term strategies:

• For schools and districts currently in receivership, establishes a 1-year path out, including the development of transition plans by local School Committees, restoration of democratic oversight and collective bargaining, and funding and technical assistance to implement the transition plans.
• Requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to consider growth in scores, not just raw scores, to identify schools and districts in need of improvement. 
• Initiates comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) plans that address root causes with a whole child approach and clear accountability and benchmarks. 
• Makes graduation dependent on successful completion of coursework, which is a predictor of future learning and life success. As now, courses must continue to meet state standards and curriculum frameworks.
• Establish a commission to develop a new vision and array of assessments.