Love it, hate it, read it: DESE on what happens now

 The blog post title swiped, as some may remember, from Worcester Magazine, which used it as a tag line for a number of years. You may not like what you're reading here, but we ignore the state governing body (which they are!) at our peril. 

I don't go to those meetings for my health.

If you were following yesterday's liveblogging or read the MASC update from Tuesday's Board of Ed meeting, you may have caught just how much of a muddle we've been left in through the passage of the ballot question removing the MCAS as the state's competency determination. 
And it took until now, but with articles in State House News Service, Commonwealth Beacon, Boston Herald, and MassLive, it appears that maybe now this may be becoming more widespread information. 

Am I going to say that I told you so? Yes, I am. 

As a reminder, here's what the passage of the ballot question has left us with as a state law: 

all slides are from Tuesday's presentation at the Board of Ed

The meetings where I agree with Marty West are few and far between, but his characterization of this as "a mess" is, as I said in my earlier post on this, absolutely correct. 

What appears to continuing to escape too many is that laws are executed through the executive branch. My sense on the ballot question (and even now, with some of the discussion about what comes next, or even other things currently going on in education policy, like choice of curriculum) is that some are under the impression that one can go around DESE by going to the Legislature or "straight to the voters" in changing the law. 
But laws are executed by the executive branch--it's what the name means--and so they are always subject to state regulation. You can complain about that all you like, but it's the system of government we have.
Similarly, the notion that things are "left to local districts" without DESE oversight is also a misunderstanding, as school districts are creations of the state and operation under state regulation. 

You can't escape DESE, all, no matter how you try. That's something I learned early in my time on the Worcester School Committee, which is why I started attending Board of Ed meetings, which I have now done pretty faithfully for 15 years (now there's math I wish I hadn't just done...). 

This is where Chair Craven (with whom I also rarely agree) is correct: the charge to the state to ensure the education of every individual student is a constitutional one, and it remains, regardless of what the state law says. A state law cannot conflict with the state constitution; the law has to give way. At this time, this means the state has to find a way to executive their constitutional obligation to every child through this muddle with which we've been left. 

So where are we?

First off, we have seniors who have not yet passed the 10th grade MCAS and thus have not yet earned their competency determination. Some of them took it again in November, and are awaiting results; they may still pass and thus may yet earn their competency determinations. 
Those who do not do not have a competency determination. 

This is the part that I think people have been a bit unclear on: "competency determination" and "local graduation requirements" are not the same thing. They're in two different sections of state law, and while at this point both are set by the local governance body (which is mostly school committees), the competency determination needs to thread itself through the mess of language above, which the local graduation requirement may well not do.

The example Rob Curtin gave the Board of this is: it's not uncommon for a local graduation requirement to be "two science courses." If, though, those science courses taken were NOT inclusive of biology or physics, they would not be "in areas measured by the MCAS high school tests...administered in 2023."

And if you want those seniors to graduate this spring, they need a way to meet that requirement NOW. Districts need to be figuring out who those seniors are and what they need NOW to ensure they can graduate with their class, and the school committee needs to establish what the competency determination is locally that aligns with the law.

As the Herald outlines: 

“We think it’s really important that there actually be still two processes here, one for local graduation requirements and one for the competency determination aligned to the language that’s in the new law,” Curtin said.

Local school committees will be responsible for determining those competency determination standards in time for graduation.

“The recommendations that we put forth to school districts is they need to develop a process aligned with the language of the new statute, language that I showed you around having a district certification relative to coursework align to the 10th grade standards in the subjects that the MCAS was administered,” Curtin said.

Similarly, the students who are juniors and sophomores now either passed the MCAS or did not; if they did not, they did not earn the competency determination as yet. The district needs to establish who those students are, what they need to get there, and again, the school committee needs to ensure they have a local competency determination that aligns with the law.

I've seen some discussion of districts setting up committees and "having local discussions" and such, and, look: I'm all for hashing things out, and long term, maybe that's great. But for current high school students? We do not have time. Students who are in our high schools now need to know what they need to graduate, and, in some cases, districts may not have what they need for those students need to graduate. 

Let's make sure we figure that out before we get creative and excited about process and such. 

Now, here's the "you can't avoid DESE" parts. 

Short term, largely what's coming is the outlines as noted above; the Board will also have to update the state regs to align with the state law on MCAS not being the competency determination.

What does "satisfactorily completed coursework" mean? What is "showing mastery"? Defining terms in legislative is a basic matter of state regulation. The Board could choose to do that here.
Really all that got tossed as the competency determination is the MCAS in math, ELA, and science. The law as passed allows for the competency determination to include history and social sciences, and foreign languages. The Board could pursue that.  
As school districts are creations of the state, the Board could also set requirements about what the districts in turn require. 
On all of the above, it remains to be seen what that would look like, but, as this is in the medium term, the Department is thinking of this soon, as we're talking here about current high school students. 

This is not waiting for legislation.

Could there be a new law? Sure, but let's note that it's going to have, in order to pass constitutional muster, to provide for the state to ensure it is fulfilling its obligation to every student. That is not a responsibility that can be wholesale outsourced to the districts with a list of courses.

I realize this is catching a lot of people by surprise, but, frankly, it's another example of ballot questions being a terrible way to set education policy. We're now all just going to have to cope with the consequences. 
And again, we have to do so quickly, so we don't end up with kids being unsupported. That would be particularly ironic here, given how much the 'yes' advocates said it was about students being able to graduate.