I fear they are creating a monster in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In a November 2024 referendum, voters in Massachusetts in a landslide (by traditional definitions) repealed the use of the tenth-grade state test (MCAS) as a graduation requirement, seemingly placing graduation decisions for individual students in the hands of districts. Clean. Straightforward. Nothing to see here. Let’s move on.
State officials, however, who had almost universally opposed the referendum, said not so fast. Citing their constitutional responsibilities, they viewed the outcome as roughly one part crisis to be responded to and two parts opportunity to reimagine, re-envision, and re-energize what is means to be a high school graduate in Massachusetts. The governor, as governors do, formed a 32-member mega-committee, The K-12 Graduation Council, charged essentially with determining what students should be required to do to receive a high school diploma in Massachusetts and the state’s role in the graduation process.
In late 2025, the committee issued an interim report containing a framework for graduation, and outlining a list of recommended requirements. They also promised a final report with details and implementation guidelines in June 2026. The fact that they chose a sheet of loose-leaf notebook paper and a classic composition book as the symbols of their new 21st century graduation requirements should have been a red flag.
To a large extent, the interim report and its recommendations are the result of the committee’s review of the literature and landscape of state graduation requirements. And to paraphrase Will Rogers, it’s safe to say that committee never met a graduation requirement they didn’t like.
Hey! Is that the kitchen sink?
The draft framework reads like graduation’s greatest hits. It’s a veritable who’s who or what’s what of graduation requirements. If it’s been tried or mentioned somewhere at some time, it found its way into the Framework.
- All students completing a college-prep course of study (think the original Indiana Core 40)– it’s in there.
- State-administered end-of-course tests. In there.
- Capstone Projects. In there.
- Portfolios. In there.
- Financial Literacy. In there.
- Complete the FAFSA or the state equivalent. In there.
- Create a college and/or career plan. In there.
- A nod to pathways and personalization. In there.
A generous outside observer might comment that the interim set of recommendations has the look and feel of a brainstorming activity conducted with a large, diverse group of interested stakeholders. Judgment-free. All ideas (except a high-stakes state test) welcomed. “Build on” the ideas of others.
The generation of such a list would be a great first step in a process where the second step is to carefully consider each of these possible graduation requirements as well as some outside-the-box wild ideas that might not have emerged in a review of existing practices.
Next, the resulting list of potential requirements would be mapped against the Vision of A Massachusetts Graduate developed on a parallel track spearheaded by the Council.
Note, I chose the word parallel intentionally here because from this vantage point it’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which the lines of thinking in the Framework and the Vision will ever meet.
Oh sure, if I squint and look back a couple of decades, I can see that one might think that there is a relationship between “academically prepared” and the prescribed core curriculum: take 4 English, 4 math, 3 science, and call me in the morning.
A policy Pollyanna will envision enthralling capstone projects in which students demonstrate that they are effective communicators, creative problem-solvers, and intentional collaborators. And I’m sure that there will be videos online to prove that such projects and presentations are possible. Nevertheless, an existence proof is different from a state-mandated and state-managed graduation requirement for all students.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the raw list of graduation requirements in the Framework is more of a fait accompli than a first step in a process. A final product lacking only the details and an implementation plan. Ah, the details and an implementation plan. [insert drawn out evil cackle here]
The Devil’s In The Details
How does one piece together all of those component parts in a way that produces high school graduates prepared to thrive in this fast-changing world? That task would be monumental even if you were starting with a carefully curated list of the right components. I am afraid that the current hastily constructed smorgasbord of spare parts makes the task nearly impossible.
If the task weren’t difficult enough to begin with, the self-imposed timeline of issuing a final report and set of recommendations within six months will most certainly be a fatal blow. In Rhode Island, we spent a solid decade working out the details of building the infrastructure needed to implement school-based, state-supported proficiency-based graduation requirements. Massachusetts itself devoted the better part of a decade after its Education Reform Law was passed to implementing the initial MCAS graduation requirement.
And if I may be blunt here, in comparison to the proposed Framework, the MCAS graduation requirement that was in place from 2001 through 2024 represented a very light touch by the state. A light touch that nonetheless required significant resources at the state level to administer.
More importantly, as a floor not a ceiling, the MCAS requirement demanded very little of students. It is, in fact, quite appropriate that we refer to the performance level cutscores as thresholds. For in the case of the MCAS, it quickly became clear that the passing score needed for graduation was more of a threshold to be stepped over than an imposing brick wall to be scaled as originally feared or even a hurdle to be cleared.
Implementation is where the rubber has to hit the road. Develop an implementation plan. Allow time to create the infrastructure for the state, local districts and schools, and students to implement that plan. Ideally, this is an iterative process in which the plan and framework are revised and refined based on feedback from the field before and during implementation. Feedback which is more extensive than issuing an online survey in which for each section of the Framework you ask, “What suggestions do you have for how to successfully implement the considerations listed above and/or any additional considerations you noted?”
Creating a Crisis, Losing An Opportunity
I have to think that more than a quarter century into implementing the state’s landmark Education Reform Law, most, if not all, districts in Massachusetts have a pretty good handle on how to develop and implement graduation requirements to meet the current state standards. Although I didn’t support the way that the MCAS requirement ended, as I wrote in a 2023 post, I have long believed that such initiatives must always come with an expiration date – a time when they are no longer needed, a time when they have become superfluous thresholds, a time when they have done their job because districts, schools, and students understand the standards and are doing their jobs.
With the high-stakes test aspect of the graduation requirement repealed, Massachusetts had the option to simply keep the rest of its graduation policy in place – a policy that since 2006 has been centered on district- and school-based Educational Proficiency Plans.
Selecting that option would have given the state the time and space needed to seize the opportunity to work with districts to reimagine high school and high school graduation. Instead, they opted to overthink things and reimagine high school while simultaneously rushing to roll out a new set of graduation requirements.
The MCAS requirement may be gone, but we’ve all been down this road enough times to know that battle lines will be redrawn and we will revert to crisis mode as soon as a new set of top-down graduation requirements are rolled out. The saddest part is that it didn’t have to be that way, and as I wrote in a recent post, nothing is sadder in educational policymaking than shortsightedness that leaves us lamenting what might have been.
Embrace the Absurd 