State's high court affirms MCAS as path to diploma; Justices back lower court in rejecting injunction

The state's high-stakes test passed another hurdle yesterday when the Supreme Judicial Court unanimously rejected a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction against using the exam as a graduation requirement.

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The suit, brought by students from Springfield and Billerica who hadn't passed the exams, was first heard by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot G. Botsford in April.

Judge Botsford denied the request for a preliminary injunction, and the case was appealed to the SJC.

In its majority decision yesterday, the SJC agreed with the lower court, ruling that halting the exams as a prerequisite for receiving a high school diploma would undermine educator accountability and hinder education reform.

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Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said he, too, was pleased with the court's decision.

''For too many decades, our schools awarded diplomas to thousands of young people, many of whom left high school without basic skills. We did these students no favors by promoting them from grade to grade and graduating them without the knowledge they needed.''

The state still faces other hurdles as it continues to implement the mandates of the education reform law, according to Norma Shapiro, president of the Council for Fair School Finance.

One of the litigants in the Hancock v. Driscoll education funding case that is currently being argued in Suffolk Superior Court, Ms. Shapiro said the findings in that case could affect whether the state continues to view the MCAS as legitimate.

Among other things, lawyers in that case are arguing that the state has not fully funded the curriculum frameworks that it has implemented to meet students' academic needs.

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S. Paul Reville, executive director of the Center for Education Research and Policy at the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, a private research organization, agreed that the state has an obligation to continue providing all students with ongoing opportunities to meet its education standards.

Nevertheless, he said, the SJC's decision on the legality of the MCAS exams is a ''resounding affirmation of the fairness of the state's accountability system.''

''It is not a perfect system, but we have made substantial headway in achieving accountability and high standards for all students,'' he said.

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