Statement by MTA President Merrie Najimy on new accountability results

Statement by MTA President Merrie Najimy on new accountability results


The state’s new MCAS-based accountability system is as predictable and destructive as the old system. The results show that schools serving a high percentage of low-income students, English learners and students of color do not perform as well as those that serve more affluent students.

What is dispiriting is that the new system calls for these schools to receive “targeted intervention” while providing no additional funding. Once again, the state is paying lip service to helping these students without providing the resources.

"Once again, the state is paying lip service to helping these students without providing the resources."

The state’s Foundation Budget Review Commission determined in 2015 that the foundation budget formula understates how much money is needed to fund low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities, the very students whose MCAS scores typically are below average.

Fund Our Future

Fund Our Future

Join the campaign to win the funding that our students, educators and communities deserve.

Learn More

It’s time for the Legislature to make the connection and act. The best “targeted intervention” for our schools is to provide them with the resources that parents, educators and even the nonpartisan FBRC know are essential to creating the schools our students and communities deserve. That is why the MTA will be promoting legislation in 2019 to increase state funding for public schools by $1 billion under an updated foundation budget formula.

Going forward, we have to fix the accountability system so that policymakers are also held accountable. They must be accountable for making sure that every school has positive attributes such as small class sizes, a full-time nurse and school social worker, librarians and a robust arts program. And we must fix the system by reducing the focus on standardized tests, since that focus narrows the curriculum and stifles creativity in the schools that serve the students who need enrichment the most — low-income students of color who have too often been left behind.