Recommended high school graduation requirements face local uncertainty about implementation

For some education officials in Franklin County, the devil is in the details when it comes to the final high school graduation recommendations that have been released by the Statewide K-12 Graduation Council.

The council, established by an executive order from Gov. Maura Healey to advise Beacon Hill on the development of new graduation requirements for high schoolers, released its 125-page report on June 25. The report comes 18 months after the council was established and started developing a new framework for graduation standards after voters removed the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as a graduation requirement via the passage of a ballot question in November 2024.

Under the MCAS requirement, students would finish their high school journeys by completing all local graduation requirements and by earning a “qualifying score” on the MCAS. Students were tested in mathematics, English language arts and science.

The graduating classes of 2025 and 2026 are the first two graduating classes since MCAS was removed as a requirement to have earned their diplomas without a uniform graduation standard. A new standard may still be years away, as the earliest implementation recommendations are for the 2027-2028 school year, and legislative action to make the recommended requirements law still needs to take place.

For now, the final recommendations from the Statewide K-12 Graduation Council are seeing more questions than answers on how districts would be able to implement them, as rural schools face declining state aid and insufficient staffing.

“The details change the weight of the lift,” said Darius Modestow, superintendent of the Frontier Regional and Union 38 school districts.

Without MCAS as a graduation requirement, the proposed graduation framework includes four “primary components.” These include bringing the MassCore program of study to all classrooms; implementing end-of-course exams that the state will design, administer and grade; student participation in My Career and Academic Plan (MyCAP) and education on financial literacy, artificial intelligence and digital literacy, along with education on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the Massachusetts Application for State Financial Aid (MASFA); and students creating a locally assessed capstone, or portfolio of work, to show what they’ve learned.

The report proposes the implementation of the first MassCore cohort entering ninth grade in 2027-2028, and implementing the other requirements the next school year with incoming freshmen. That means districts would have at least six more graduating classes before students could graduate in 2032 having achieved all the uniform standards contemplated by the council — eight years following the ballot question’s passage.

Bringing back standardized testing?

Notably, while MCAS was eliminated as a graduation requirement, under these new recommendations, students would take end-of-course exams within the MassCore program of study, scored by the state and counting toward graduation. Currently, students are still taking the MCAS as a benchmark for school and district performance, and the end-of-course exams would not be rolled out until 2028.

The council’s report explains that stakeholders who provided feedback for these recommendations sought a “standardized measurement of mastery,” with emphasis on consistency between districts to “understand and address any disparities across districts and student populations.” It notes that some stakeholders see the value in standardized testing to prepare students for similar exams following their graduation from high school, but others shared concern for continuing to include standardized testing and whether it plays too large a part in earning a diploma.

Stakeholder feedback was also provided in the report, including the results of a statewide survey where 51% of respondents agree or strongly agree that assessments or tests are how students should demonstrate “learning and readiness for college, career and civic life.” On the other hand, 87% of respondents agree or strongly agree that a portfolio of work is best.

The return of an exam as tied to graduation is something that the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) has pushed back on, in light of MCAS being removed as a graduation requirement.

“We had high hopes for the Governor’s Council on Graduation Requirements,” a joint statement by MTA President Max Page and Vice President Deb McCarthy reads. “But as we approach the second anniversary of voters passing the ballot measure to end the use of MCAS as a high school graduation requirement, we are troubled that the governor’s two education officials tasked with developing new statewide graduation requirements have missed the opportunity that voters provided when approving Question 2.”

The Massachusetts Teachers Association spearheaded the ballot question to remove MCAS as a graduation requirement. Ballot question supporters argued that the test is a “one-size-fits-all exam” that doesn’t properly measure student achievement, and it shouldn’t be used as a barrier for the 1% of students each year who are unable to pass, but who otherwise meet the requirements necessary to graduate.

Other statewide education organizations have shared concerns over the end-of-course assessment recommendation, with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees being “deeply concerned” regarding a lack of clarity about the exams, as noted in its May 2026 “Position Paper: The Graduation Standard,” while backing other recommendations.

Doug Selwyn, a former teacher and chair of the Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution’s education task force, was a “yes” vote for removing MCAS as a graduation requirement. He said he believes the council’s recommendations essentially bring back standardized testing tied to graduation that voters opposed.

“I think we’re moving in absolutely the wrong direction, and we’ve already proven that in the last 30 years with MCAS,” Selwyn said. “This is just more of the same, so I think it’s a significant problem that I hope we can intervene.”

Similar to Selwyn, Stacey Sexton, who serves on the Greenfield School Committee, shared their personal thoughts on the recommendations, which they feel could equate to a “siphoning away of resources” from students.

“It’s not just money. It’s also the time and the attention,” Sexton explained, “because if we’re asking all of our educators to now get to know a whole new set of exams, that’s time that they’re not spending getting to know, or deepening their own expertise in, their core curriculum, or the time that they’re not spending devising very interesting assignments and things for students.”

In an email, Modestow explained he was opposed to MCAS being removed as a graduation requirement. He added that there needs to be a system to meet federal guidelines for testing, and he has questions on how the proposed end-of-course exams would work.

“For example, what happens if a student earns an A in a course but does not pass the end-of-course exam? How will students with IEPs (Individualized Education Programs) and other learning needs be appropriately accommodated?” Modestow wonders. “Those scenarios could place teachers in difficult positions and create confusion for students and families about what truly determines competency.”

Modestow also wonders how the Statewide K-12 Graduation Council’s recommendations, if approved, could be implemented in far larger districts, especially when it comes to assessing the locally controlled capstone projects or portfolios.

The million-dollar question

For Modestow and Elizabeth Zielinski, superintendent of the Ralph C. Mahar Regional and Union 73 school districts, the question is: how do schools make this work?

Zielinski, like Modestow, said she was opposed to removing MCAS as a graduation requirement back in 2024. She shared her concern at the time about ensuring student buy-in to still take an exam that doesn’t count toward their diploma but still impacts how schools are assessed, along with Massachusetts needing to create altogether new requirements to replace MCAS.

Reflecting on the council’s recommendations, Zielinski described them as “honorable” and “educationally sound,” but as it stands, she feels funding to implement the ideas remains questionable.

“It’s cost-prohibitive, especially for rural, poor districts,” she said, adding that schools are already struggling financially and find staff retention and hiring difficult.

The Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents’ statement from Executive Director Mary Bourque noted a similar concern over how schools might handle these mandates, but shared that the association believes the recommended graduation requirements will “promote rigor and consistency” across districts.

“We also recognize that the new mandates will require school districts to make significant investments of time and resources,” the statement reads, “and we call upon our partners in state government to provide the funding, support and flexibility needed for effective implementation.”

The council’s report does say that the state will help schools to implement MassCore by making $500,000 in grants available this summer to schools that still need to adopt the program of study. According to the Massachusetts Education-to-Career Research and Data Hub, 82.1% of all graduating students completed MassCore in 2025.

Even so, questions loom on how to get everything done.

“I think [members of the Statewide K-12 Graduation Council] were under pressure to put something forward,” Modestow said, “and I think overall they’re taking a big bite of a lot of things that are going to be without a lot of details on how schools are going to execute all these changes.”