Ballot measures beg a reality check question
The nature of two potential ballot questions gives the state’s taxpayers a clear read into those they entrust with educating their children.
The state’s largest teacher’s union is considering a ballot question that would eliminate the graduation requirement associated with statewide standardized testing known as MCAS, and another that would create a “debt free college scholarship program,” proposals so extreme that even the Democratic-dominated Legislature won’t touch them.
Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, told the State House News Service the group’s compiling polling data ahead of the Aug. 2 deadline to file paperwork for 2024 ballot questions.
The union commissioned a poll by Echo Cove Research, a self- described “different kind of market research firm,” in June that it said shows support for the two potential referendums.
Of the 800 registered voters asked, 81% said they would vote “yes” on a ballot measure “ensuring that every Massachusetts resident who has graduated from a state high school and wishes to pursue higher education has access to an adequately funded, debt-free education at any public college or university.”
A report by thehildreth Institute — “a research and policy center dedicated to restoring the promise of higher education as an engine of upward mobility for all” — published last year found student costs at the state’s public colleges and universities increased at one of the fastest rates in the nation, with tuition and fees rising by 52% since 2000, during a time when median household earnings have climbed only 13%.
“On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s abysmal decision to gut affirmative action, it’s more important than ever that we stand up for fair and equal access to public higher education in Massachusetts,” Page said. “Residents want and need access to high quality, debt-free public higher education. Our young people should not have to go into massive debt or come from wealthy backgrounds to pursue the degrees that are required for so many jobs.”
Who wouldn’t want to pursue a debt-free college education? No wonder the polling reached 80% in the affirmative. That pie-in-the-sky departure from reality belongs in the company of the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.
Unfortunately, that individual debt you seek to eliminate must be absorbed by the rest of us, through the taxes we pay.
But we can’t envision a Legislature, which currently only funds about 25% of public higher education in this state, picking up the rest of the tab for every high-school grad in Massachusetts wishing to ascend to the next level .
Wants and needs aremutually exclusive outcomes.
The survey should have asked if those polled would accept paying higher income and sales taxes to achieve debt-free college degrees?
After all, that millionaires’ surtax won’t be sufficient to foot that bill.
We doubt the response would come anywhere near 80%.
And what about individual responsibility? Having no financial skin in the game eliminates one of the major reasons for attaining a college degree: the incentive to acquire the skills necessary to compete in a highly selective workplace environment.
We don’t need anymore dilettantes clogging up the higher-ed system.
And that lack of responsibility/accountability also seeps into the other ballot question.
The othermta priority, eliminating the graduation requirement tied to the MCAS, received a 73% backing in that survey.
The union has called the test a “punitive, high-stakes, rank-and-shame accountability system,” words you’d expect fromthe rank and file that would be relieved of this perceived teaching burden.
The MTA has long opposed the exams, created in a 1993 education reform law aimed at improving accountability and school performance, which it succeeded in doing. It put Massachusetts students at the front of the class in virtually every national education metric.
Can it be tweaked and updated? Certainly, but that’s no reason to abandon it as a graduation requirement.
Supporters of the exams say they provide valuable data on school performance and achievement gaps that can be ameliorated with funding and interventions, while objectors say the MCAS causes unnecessary stress for students, takes away class time to teach “test taking” skills, and doesn’t provide useful feedback for teachers.
According to the union, instead of THEMCAS, schools would certify students for graduation on other state standard requirements.
Those polled also showed support for educators having the right to strike — which is illegal in Massachusetts — with 66% of respondents saying they support the measure. Additionally, 59% said they would support ending the system that can place schools and districts in state receivership — further eroding accountability.
We live in a competitive global environment, composed of many nations that encourage their students to excel by insisting on challenging academic standards that prepare them for the real world beyond the sheltered walls of academia.
The removal of demanding education requirements and accountability, if enacted in this state and others, will leave our student population — and eventually this country — at a serious disadvantage.