Last spring, under pressure from CPS and our allies, the Massachusetts legislature took action to allow the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to suspend MCAS testing and allow some high school seniors to graduate without passing all of the required MCAS exams in 2020.

That was important, but now they need to take the next step and suspend the MCAS for 2021. In the midst of this pandemic, MCAS scores from spring 2021 would primarily measure wealth and privilege even more starkly than MCAS tests usually do. As a recent Boston Herald editorial put it, “If they proceed, the MCAS will certainly serve as an assessment tool -- of economic inequality."

The state must once again allow educators to focus on students' real needs and not waste time and resources on a flawed and damaging standardized testing system.