HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 91        FILED ON: 1/6/2025

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 660

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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PRESENTED BY:

Kelly W. Pease

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To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act concerning equitable state summative assessments of students.

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PETITION OF:

HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 91        FILED ON: 1/6/2025

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 660

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth General Court
(2025-2026)

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An Act concerning equitable state summative assessments of students.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

Section 1 of Chapter 69 of the General laws, as appearing in the 2020 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out item (4) and inserting in place thereof the following words, effective July 1, 2021:

“(4) to provide equity in opportunity for all children to reach their full potential, an effective mechanism in the form of a computer-adaptive assessment with a high enough ceiling and low enough floor to monitor the actual achievement and progress of individual students’ mastery through the various K-12 learning standards in English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies, which mechanism seeks to identify, on an annual basis, the learning standards students likely have already mastered and those which they haven’t, for the purposes of identifying all students’ authentic growth, ensuring their continuous progress through those learning standards, identifying directly the actual level of each student’s learning readiness in the public classrooms of the Commonwealth, and of holding educators more accurately and fairly accountable through such authentic measure of students’ achievement and growth.”

Section 1I of Chapter 69 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2020 Official Edition, is hereby amended by replacing the fourth sentence of the second paragraph with the following sentence, effective July 1, 2023:

“To provide equity in opportunity for all children to reach their full potential, such instruments shall be criterion-referenced and flexible enough to assess which levels of the various academic standards, described in this chapter, that students are meeting.”