Judge Refuses to Block MCAS for Graduation
Federal Court Judge Michael Ponser today denied the student plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in the MCAS lawsuit, thus essentially foreclosing the hope that the court will allow 6,000 seniors who have not passed the test to graduate this June.
This legal setback highlights more than ever the importance of the battle in the political arena. We must blanket the State House with phone calls and letters urging senators to pass a special ed amendment to the budget, and to vote for other amendments to end the graduation requirement for all students. We must redouble the pressure on our school committees to grant diplomas regardless of MCAS. And we should remember that the legal fight is far from over. The case still must work its way through the courts.
Judge Ponser rejected the arguments of the students’ lawyers that the MCAS graduation requirement violated their constitutional rights to due process under the law. The plaintiffs argued that the students had not been taught the material that was on the test (that the state had never established the curricular and instructional validity of the test).
The judge stated clearly that he was not ruling on the merits of the MCAS policy, but simply on certain narrow legal issues. “The Legislature has the right to make mistakes,” he said. “They have a right to make bad policy. The courts don’t have the right to be a lone ranger or a roving ombudsman…the hearing today is not about whether the MCAS is a bad thing or a good thing, but whether it is SO bad that it violates (these particular constitutional rights)…” He found the situation of special education and limited English proficiency students to be particularly “troubling.”
Attorney Roger Rice noted that the ten remaining student plaintiffs would have graduated if not for the MCAS. Many of them did well in school and have been accepted to colleges, but will not be able to go without a diploma; one wants to open a business, another has been recruited to play college basketball; one wants to continue with video production and another hopes to join the Air Force. The judge expressed much admiration and sympathy for the students, but his only piece of advice was essentially that they keep taking remedial classes and trying to pass the MCAS.
A side note: One of the attorneys for the state addressed many of the arguments by the students’ lawyers, not by attempting to answer them on their merits, but simply saying over and over that they did not meet the rigorous legal definition of “shocking the conscience” and therefore should not influence the judge. (He cited another case which did not meet the “standard,” in which the police had invaded and taken over a woman’s house, and when she came home and tried to enter, they arrested her for attempted burglary, then on the way to jail, threatened her life. Or another case, when police who were arresting a man told his four-year-old son to say goodbye because he would never see his father again. It’s nice to know that the state Dept of Ed has good company in implementing policies which fail to “shock the conscience” of the court.)
As Ponser issued his opinion at the end of the three and a half hour hearing, a delegation of Boston students who had traveled to Springfield and had been listening quietly throughout the proceedings stood up and silently filed out of the courtroom. These impressive young men and women from Teen Empowerment talked to reporters outside the courthouse about their hopes and dreams – and those of their friends – that were being dashed by the MCAS graduation requirement. While angry and upset, several of the students vowed not to give up. We adults should resolve right now that we will not desert them and that we will carry on the fight.
Jackie King and Larry Ward and Lisa Guisbond
