Massachusetts students and voters deserve much better than the Healey Administration’s final graduation requirement recommendations, which include a rebooted version of the MCAS graduation requirement that voters decisively rejected in 2024.
While the governor’s final recommendations include some potentially valuable elements, we believe that, overall, they miss the mark. We have significant concerns about several key components, especially the inclusion of a new set of state standardized tests, which state officials call “end-of-course” exams. The administration’s stated intention is for these new tests to “meaningfully count” in determining whether a student can graduate. We believe these tests go directly against the will of the voters, who emphatically rejected the use of statewide, standardized exams as a barrier to graduation in passing Question 2 in 2024.
We also question the wisdom of imposing costly new requirements during a fiscal crisis that is leading to thousands of public school staff layoffs and cuts to educational programs and services across the Commonwealth.
Elements such as MassCORE and capstone or portfolio requirements could be beneficial, assuming there are resources and staffing to support their implementation. However, that is not an assumption we can make in the current fiscal environment.
Citizens for Public Schools’ response to the Gov. Healey administration’s final high school graduation recommendations is based on decades of study and advocacy for better ways to assess and promote student learning as well as the views of hundreds of stakeholders from across Massachusetts who attended our People’s Forums on Graduation Readiness.
“Citizens for Public Schools urges Governor Healey and state education leaders to step back and follow the mandate of the voters, the voices of those who attended CPS’s People’s Forums, the Graduation Council’s own listening sessions, and the voices of key members of the Graduation Council itself in any new graduation requirements for Massachusetts public high schools,” said Lisa Guisbond, Executive Director of Citizens for Public Schools. “The commissioner and the secretary seem to be turning the ‘Vision of the Graduate’ they released last year into a mere decoration — maybe a pretty poster to be hung in the back of our high school classes. That is wrong. The ‘Vision’ should be central to any new requirements.”
The Healey administration’s previously released “Vision of a Graduate” comes closest to reflecting the learning priorities we’ve heard from so many stakeholders. However, the recommendations themselves stray considerably from both the Vision and stakeholder priorities such as those we heard from participants in our People’s Forums on Graduation Readiness. Those priorities include:
- Critical thinking
- Academic literacy
- Effective communication skills
- Ability to collaborate with others
- Civic mindedness
- Continuous learning
- Self reliance
These skills should be at the core of new requirements.
Below are our detailed responses to the specific elements of the recommendations, which we originally shared in March after the preliminary framework was released in December 2025. Much of our response is unchanged, since the recommendations themselves are unchanged. Where there have been changes made to the recommendations, we note our response to those changes in italics.
(We note that other key public education stakeholder groups, for example, the MA Association of School Committees, have released responses that overlap substantially with ours.)
| Governor’s recommendations | CPS response |
| Complete the MassCore set of courses | CPS could support requiring all students to complete the MassCore sequence as a graduation requirement if the state ensures local flexibility and exemptions, including the following provisos: 1. Course Flexibility. Districts, schools, and teachers should have flexibility in structuring MassCore courses in creative, innovative ways to better prepare students for career, college, and civic life, for example, internships in a science lab or local newspaper to meet science and English course requirements respectively, or Humanities in place of separate English and social studies courses, or extended research projects embedded within multiple courses. 2. Exemptions for Special Populations. English learners at ELD levels 1-3, students with disabilities whose IEPs don’t allow time for the full 22-course sequence, and students who arrive in Massachusetts midway through their high school years should be able to earn a high school diploma even if they can’t complete the full MassCore requirements. 3. Approved Opt-Outs to Pursue Other Goals. Some 11th and 12th grade students may have already determined, or want to explore, their future career paths, for example, becoming an artist or musician. These students should be able to opt out, using a formal local process of application and approval, of advanced science and math courses, for example, in order to enroll in in-school or out-of-school advanced art and music classes. |
| Take end-of-course standardized tests (EOCs) created and scored by the state | We oppose this proposal for the same reasons we have opposed one-size-fits-all state standardized tests for decades: They narrow the curriculum and distort what and how students learn. EOCs will force teachers to design their courses around what is on the test, rather than what is best for their students. They do nothing to help students achieve the skills embedded in the state’s Vision of the Graduate. Massachusetts voters defeated the top-down, standardized approach to improving education in November. The governor and her education leadership should recognize that voters want a different approach. |
| Complete a capstone project or a portfolio of their work | Curriculum-embedded capstone projects and performance assessment portfolios can be excellent, flexible learning tools when they are integral parts of a course of learning. But they can be tedious, box-checking rituals if done badly. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education should not impose a state-devised, uniform format and design. Instead, DESE should develop partnerships with organizations such as the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA) to provide professional development opportunities and resources to district and school teams on how to create, administer, and score high quality performance assessments and projects. |
| Develop an individual career and academic plan | We welcome this recommendation. The first step, as with other proposals, is to do a study of the costs and then provide any needed funds. |
| Complete the federal or state application for financial aid for higher education | This is a good idea for many students. We note that the proposal allows students to opt out. |
| Develop knowledge and skills in financial literacy | This is another good idea that has come up often in community meetings in Massachusetts and elsewhere like the People’s Forums that CPS organized around the state. DESE should provide recommendations on how financial literacy can be taught in various ways, including embedded in existing courses. |
| Students will be able to earn state-designated “seals of distinction” | Seals of distinction should only be created for areas in which a seal would be of proven value to students upon entering the work world, similar to the state’s current seal of biliteracy. |
