Join us Thursday, February 26 at 6:30pm for Citizens for Public Schools’ ICE and Schools webinar. Empower yourself by learning from front-line educators about the impact of ICE on our schools and communities. Learn what is being done to protect immigrant students and how individuals and communities can help.

The objective of this webinar is to explore with our panelists and participants the following questions:

• What impact has ICE’s presence had on your school/district?
• How has your school/district community protected or insulated your immigrant student population in response to ICE’s presence or possible future presence?
• What are ways in which individuals in your community can support your immigrant student population against ICE intervention in these times? What have been the barriers to protecting students?
• Are there ways in which communities can coordinate and work together to prepare for possible ICE intervention?

Click here for more information and to register.    → Read More

[Haga clic aquí para ver la versión en español.]

If Governor Healey’s Statewide High School Graduation Framework, released on December 1, is a first draft, it needs serious revisions for the final version to meet the needs of our students and schools. The framework includes state-created and scored end-of-course tests, or standardized tests in new clothing. This recommendation ignores the will of the voters who in November 2024 decided overwhelmingly to eliminate MCAS and any other standardized test as graduation requirements. Changes must be made for the state to do more than pay lip service to demands for a whole child, 21st century education, as well as flexibility, educator autonomy and student agency. 

Citizens for Public Schools, in cooperation with other education organizations, organized a series of public forums across the state to find out what parents, teachers, students, and other people concerned with our public schools really want for graduation readiness requirements.   → Read More

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If the State Graduation Council’s Interim Report is a first draft, it needs serious revisions for the final version to meet the needs of our students and schools. The report comes after voters resoundingly rejected a state-imposed standardized exam and after extensive input about what stakeholders want students to know and be able to do. Changes must be made for the state to do more than pay lip service to demands for a whole child, 21st century education, as well as flexibility, educator autonomy and student agency.

Despite many calls for multiple pathways to graduation, the interim report lays out a multilayered set of graduation requirements, with the emphasis on standardized end-of-course assessments to be designed, administered and scored by the state. On top of these will be a state-defined capstone or portfolio requirement and requirements for students to complete a rigorous course of study that aligns with higher education admissions requirements.   → Read More

Citizens for Public Schools, in cooperation with other education organizations, is organizing a series of six  public forums across the state where parents, teachers, students, and other people concerned with our public schools can come together to discuss three fundamental questions:

1. What should students know and be able to do by the time they graduate from high school?
2. How should students demonstrate their readiness to graduate?
3. What should high school look like to prepare students for your recommended graduation requirements?

The first forum was on Wednesday, April 30 at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. Read about it here. The next forum was in New Bedford on Saturday, May 24. Read about it here. Our third forum was in Worcester at the YWCA at on Monday, September 29. Read about it here.

The meetings follow on the approval of Question 2 last November when Massachusetts voters decisively rejected the one-size-fits-all MCAS graduation requirement, 59 to 41 percent.   → Read More

In the wake of the state’s overwhelming vote to pass Question 2 in November 2024, which eliminated the MCAS high school graduation requirement, CPS has updated its fact sheet on opting out. You can read the updated fact sheet here.

   → Read More