Editorial Staff

Poll: Parents, Teachers, Legislators Support Reinstating Passage of U.S. History MCAS Test as High School Graduation Requirement

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

Strong majorities of parents, history and social studies teachers, and legislators in Massachusetts support restoring passage of a U.S. history MCAS test as a high school graduation requirement, according to a new poll of the three groups commissioned by Pioneer Institute.

History Education in Massachusetts Schools: A Pioneer Institute Survey of Educators, Parents & Legislators

“Support for the U.S. history graduation requirement has remained strong despite the anti-testing backlash we’ve seen in recent years,” said David Paleologos, president of DAPA Research, who conducted the poll.

Strong majorities of parents and teachers, and a plurality of legislators also opposed changing the Commonwealth’s U.S. history education standards, which are considered to be among the nation’s finest.

Parents were the most in favor of restoring the U.S. history graduation requirement, with 68 percent either strongly or somewhat supportive, followed by 65 percent of history and social studies teachers.  Among legislators, 56 percent were either strongly or somewhat supportive.

In 2010, Massachusetts adopted inferior English and math standards, known as Common Core, and last year the Commonwealth adopted watered-down science standards.  The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) is scheduled to vote on jettisoning the Bay State’s U.S. history standards later this month.

For the class of 2012, U.S. history was scheduled to join English and math as subjects requiring MCAS test passage to graduate from high school, but the measure was postponed and has never been reinstated.  Massachusetts is one of only nine states that doesn’t have a history and civics requirement.

“Twenty-five years ago, when we crafted the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA), the law was not overly prescriptive about academic content,” said MERA co-author and Pioneer Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow Tom Birmingham. “But we were quite clear that the fundamentals of U.S. history should join English, math, and science as a core academic subject that’s taught and tested for the state graduation requirement.”

Pioneer commissioned a similar poll in 2012.  Since then, support for the U.S. history graduation requirement has grown among parents (59 to 68 percent) and teachers (63 to 65 percent), and is down among legislators (64 to 56 percent).

At least 80 percent of each category of respondents, including 96 percent of legislators, agreed that Massachusetts public schools should focus more on educating students in U.S. history.

More than four out of five (82 percent) teachers affirmed that there is a connection between subjects that are tested and those that are taught in schools, while 71 percent of parents saw a correlation between students not being required to pass a history test and the fact that Massachusetts students don’t tend to perform as well in history as they do in English, math, and science.

When BESE postponed the U.S. history graduation requirement in 2009, they cited the $2.4 million cost of administering the test.  Nearly 9 out of 10 (88 percent) legislators responding to the recent poll said the money to administer the test could be found within the $9.5 billion annual taxpayer investment in public education.

DAPA Research conducted the statewide surveys of 500 parents, 150 teachers, and interviews with 25 Massachusetts legislators.  The poll of parents was conducted May 19- 25, 2018 and has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

About Pioneer

Pioneer Institute is an independent, non-partisan, privately funded research organization that seeks to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts through civic discourse and intellectually rigorous, data-driven public policy solutions based on free market principles, individual liberty and responsibility, and the ideal of effective, limited and accountable government.

Elevating Liberal Democracy Above Fragmentation – 30 Resources for Citizens and Schools

In Pioneer’s ongoing series of blogs on curricular resources for parents, families, and teachers during COVID-19, this one focuses on: Elevating Liberal Democracy Above Fragmentation.

Aurora Institute’s Susan Patrick on Digital Learning Lessons from COVID-19

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Gerard Robinson and Cara Candal talk with Susan Patrick, the President and CEO of Aurora Institute and co-founder of CompetencyWorks. Susan shares observations about the long-term implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for American K-12 education, and the prospects for expanding digital learning.

Court Preserves Privacy: First Amendment Ruling Defends Non-Profits From Modern-Day McCarthyism

Hubwonk Host Joe Selvaggi talks with CATO research fellow and constitutional scholar Trevor Burrus about the recent Supreme Court ruling, Americans For Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, reaffirming the right to privacy by denying the state of California the right to compel non-profits to disclose their list of donors.

Celebrating American Independence! – 50 Resources on America’s Founding for Schoolchildren & Citizens

American schoolchildren need to know more about the basic history of and lessons from the American Revolution and War for Independence, including perhaps the greatest leader and hero the country has ever produced, George Washington. To do our small part to help the cause, we’re offering a variety of resources to help parents, teachers, schoolchildren, and citizens better celebrate the Fourth of July!

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Prof. David Hackett Fischer on Paul Revere, George Washington, & American Independence

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Gerard Robinson and Cara Candal talk with David Hackett Fischer, University Professor and Earl Warren Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University, and the author of numerous books, including Paul Revere's Ride and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington's Crossing. As America prepares to celebrate the Fourth of July, they review key figures who helped secure independence from Great Britain, including Paul Revere, immortalized in Longfellow’s classic poem, and Founding Father George Washington, known among his contemporaries as the “indispensable man” of the revolutionary cause.

“The Jazz Age” – 1920s America – 50 Resources for High School Students

American schoolchildren need to know more about the basics of the history of and lessons from the 1920s, which did as much as any decade to shape our modern country in the last century. To remedy this, we’re offering a variety of resources to help parents, teachers, and high schoolers:

Jo Napolitano on the Inspiring Stories of Immigrant Children

This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Jo Napolitano, journalist, former Spencer Fellow at Columbia University, and author of the new book, The School I Deserve: Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America, about the enterprising spirit of immigrants and refugees across the nation and at the U.S.-Mexico border.

AEI’s Naomi Schaefer Riley on Parenting, Excessive Screen Time, & Religion in American Education

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve," Gerard Robinson and guest co-host Kerry McDonald talk with Naomi Schaefer Riley, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of several books, including Be the Parent, Please.

Monarchs of the Sea – American Boats, Ships, & their Captains – 40 Resources for High School Students

In Pioneer’s ongoing series of blogs on curricular resources for parents, families, and teachers during COVID-19, this one focuses on: Celebrating American Boats, Ships, & their Captains.

New York Times Best Seller Paul Reid on Winston Churchill, WWII, & the Cold War

This week on “The Learning Curve," Cara and guest co-host Kerry McDonald talk with Paul Reid, co-author, with William Manchester, of the New York Times best-selling biography of Winston Churchill, The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965. Reid shares how he was enlisted to complete William Manchester’s biographical trilogy on the greatest political figure of the 20th century, which became a best-seller.

“Ballast for the Ship of State” – The U.S. Senate – 40 Resources for High School Students

The U.S. Senate’s vital, though sometimes dormant, authority in the face of the Imperial Presidency means few Americans and schoolchildren truly understand its constitutional role and inner workings. To remedy this, we’re offering a variety of resources to help parents, teachers, and high schoolers.

BU’s Dr. Farouk El-Baz on NASA’s Moon Landing, Remote Sensing, & STEM

This week on “The Learning Curve," Gerard and Cara talk with Dr. Farouk El-Baz, retired research professor and director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. They discuss his remarkable, varied, and pioneering career in the sciences, surveying both the heavens and the Earth, and key teachers and scientists who have influenced him. Dr. El-Baz shares what it was like serving as supervisor of Lunar Science Planning for NASA's Apollo program, and working on the world-changing project of putting a human on the Moon.

Rafe Esquith on Teaching Shakespeare to Inner-City LA Students

This week on “The Learning Curve," Gerard and Cara talk with Rafe Esquith, an award-winning teacher at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles, and the founder of The Hobart Shakespeareans, who annually stage performances of unabridged plays by William Shakespeare. He shares why he founded the award-winning program to teach disadvantaged Los Angeles elementary school students a classical humanities curriculum, the most inspiring experiences and the biggest challenges of teaching highly demanding literary works to young schoolchildren from diverse backgrounds.

Law Prof. Melvin Urofsky on Justice Louis Brandeis, the SCOTUS, & Dissenting Opinions

This week on “The Learning Curve," Gerard and Cara talk with Melvin Urofsky, Professor of Law & Public Policy and Professor Emeritus of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the author of several books, including Louis D. Brandeis: A Life and Dissent and the Supreme Court. Professor Urofsky shares insights on Justice Brandeis’s jurisprudence, and why he consistently ranks among the three most influential Supreme Court justices in American history.

“The Road to the Stars” – U.S. Space Exploration – 25 Resources for K-12 Students

In Pioneer’s ongoing series of blogs on curricular resources for parents, families, and teachers during COVID-19, this one focuses on: Celebrating U.S. Space Exploration.

Talking Out Of School: Supreme Court Considers Campus Boundaries Within Social Media Universe

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with constitutional scholar and CATO Institute Research Fellow Thomas Berry about the recently heard U.S. Supreme Court case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., and its implications for free speech, school control, and the integration of social media into the rubric of first amendment protections.

Stanford’s National Humanities Medal Winner Prof. Arnold Rampersad on Langston Hughes & Ralph Ellison

This week on “The Learning Curve," Gerard and Cara talk with Professor Arnold Rampersad, the Sara Hart Kimball Professor Emeritus in Humanities at Stanford University and recipient of the National Humanities Medal for his books including The Life of Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison: A Biography.

Poll Finds Mixed Views About Schools’ Pandemic Performance

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, Massachusetts residents have mixed opinions about how K-12 education has functioned, but they tend to view the performance of individual teachers more favorably than that of institutions like school districts and teachers’ unions, according to a poll of 1,500 residents commissioned by Pioneer Institute.