WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee last week had a microcosm of the debate with which voters around the commonwealth will grapple when they go to the polls over the next few weeks: whether to continue using the MCAS test as a requirement for a high school diploma.

 

Question 2 on the Nov. 5 ballot, if passed, would eliminate the current practice requiring high school students to pass the 10th grade Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test in order to graduate from school.

 

The issue arose at the October meeting of the regional school committee in the context of advising the body's delegate to this fall's Massachusetts Association of School Committee's convention on a proposal before that statewide body. One of the resolutions on the MASC agenda would go even further, calling on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to institute a "moratorium" on all MCAS testing while a replacement to the current standardized test is developed.

 

The committee agreed to authorize its delegate, Julia Bowen, to submit an amendment to the MCAS resolution that would strike the moratorium language but continue to push for alternatives.

 

But the regional panel also waded into the more pressing issue: Question 2, which will be decided the day before the MASC conference in Hyannis on Nov. 6.

 

Carolyn Greene noted that the MASC's executive committee already voted a position on Question 2, encouraging its passage and the replacement of the "high-stakes MCAS" with a, "more reasonable and equitable requirement for a high school diploma."

 

But the local elected officials were more conflicted — both as a group and as individuals — on the issue.