Deep blue Massachusetts is far from the presidential campaign trail. But a high-stakes campaign has flooded the state with social media and television ads, pressing voters to consider a major change to the public school system widely seen as the nation’s best.
In Massachusetts, a generation of students has been required to complete standardized exams in English, math and the sciences to earn a high school diploma. The requirement is the capstone of a rigorous set of standards that have helped set the state apart from others on achievement tests.
On Election Day, Massachusetts voters will decide whether to change course.
A ballot measure known as Question 2 would eliminate the exams as a graduation mandate. If it passes, there would be no statewide requirements for receiving a diploma.
The proposal has provoked sharp divisions among Democrats, who control the state government.
The state’s teachers’ union, which spearheaded the ballot question, has poured millions into efforts to convince voters the exam shuts out teenagers who already have the odds stacked against them. They have pointed to research showing such mandates can push more disadvantaged students to drop out.
Several members of Congress like Representative Ayanna Pressley and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former special education teacher, support the union, saying one test cannot measure all students’ skills.
Business executives and state leaders, including Gov. Maura Healey, also a Democrat, have urged voters to keep the test requirement, arguing the uniform standard sets one expectation for all students, regardless of their ZIP code. And The Boston Globe’s editorial board warned in grave terms that while Massachusetts schools “are the envy of the nation,” the effort “threatens one of the foundations of the state’s success.”
More than 90 percent of sophomores pass the test — called the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System or MCAS — on their first try. Failing students can retake the exams several times, or lodge an appeal.
Ultimately, just hundreds of students — among more than 65,000 test takers — are annually blocked from a diploma because they do not pass the MCAS. But some 85 percent are students with disabilities or new immigrants still learning English.
Opponents of the ballot question argue that other disadvantaged students could fall behind if the state’s 300-plus districts all create their own requirements. They worry that affluent areas might set a higher bar, while low-income students could be pushed along to a diploma after meeting a minimal benchmark.
High school exit exams gained traction during the early 2000s. They were meant to boost achievement by raising standards and to signal to colleges and employers that students were prepared. But many states moved away from the exams over the last decade, believing that offering more options to prove skills could benefit disadvantaged students.
Today, Massachusetts is one of only nine states that rely on an exit exam for graduation.
The debate over whether to do away with the Massachusetts requirement comes as educators across the nation grapple with how to address achievement gaps that worsened during the pandemic.
Several other states have eased standards, lowering passing scores in reading and math. Grade inflation has grown since the pandemic, even as students struggle with learning loss. And in Massachusetts, the graduation rate rose slightly between 2019 and 2023, despite soaring rates of school absences.
Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education who is against throwing out the requirement, said he worries the trends reveal “a kind of fatigue and a lowering of expectations” in the wake of Covid.
“We know the harm done to this star-crossed generation of children is still very much with us,” Mr. Dee said, adding that states could be pushing an “educational debt” down the road, leaving students unaware that they may not be ready for college courses.
Because of federal testing mandates, 10th graders will continue to sit for the exams even if voters approve the ballot measure, though their scores will not be used by the state.
But supporters of the ballot question say that removing the stakes could give teenagers freedom to learn more than what will end up on a test. Many teachers in the United States take more than 12 days to prepare students for state exams, and some in higher poverty schools spend over a month, according to one survey from George Washington University’s Center on Education Policy.
Max Page, the president of the teachers’ union, the Massachusetts Teacher Association, argued that warnings over a deterioration of excellence are overblown. The state’s hallmark rigorous standards are infused through the education system, he said, from curriculum to teacher certification to oversight.
“That’s the core that makes our schools the best in the country,” Mr. Page said. “Not this one-time standardized test.”
If the ballot measure passes, the exam would be eliminated as a requirement for this spring’s Class of 2025.
Several experts said the fight over the test could miss the point. A requirement that immigrant students still learning English pass a test in English, for example, suggests “a mismatch” in expectations and support for those students said John Papay, an associate professor at Brown University who has studied high-stakes exams.
“Is it the test — or is it the standards — that are preventing students from graduating?” he asked. “I think the testing is a red herring.”