New survey of Mass. teachers show a dislike of statewide exams as a replacement for MCAS
The survey of nearly 1,200 Massachusetts educators by UMass Amherst’s Center for Education Policy also found that teachers consider their biggest challenges in the classroom to be student disinterest and low motivation, unclear standards around student discipline or behavior, and insufficient time for planning.
WBUR · WBUR · September 8, 2026
A survey of Massachusetts teachers shows state-designed final exams are not educators’ preferred way to assess if a student is ready to graduate.
That was one of the topics in a new survey of nearly 1,200 Massachusetts educators by UMass Amherst’s Center for Education Policy, released Tuesday.
Public school teachers were asked to rank options for new graduation requirements, nearly two years after voters scrapped using a state exam known as MCAS as the benchmark. Over the summer, a statewide council released its recommendations that a combination of end-of-course exams and a senior capstone project or portfolio should be required before graduating.
The majority of teachers surveyed by UMass said capstone projects or adoption of the MassCore curriculum were their number one choices. Half of those polled ranked final statewide exams as their last choice, with less than a fifth of respondents saying it was their first choice.
“If we want students to learn, we should have rigorous content standards … and we should track student progress. But we also need to be thinking about what motivates a kid to show up with a positive attitude, ready to learn, focused inside the class,” said Jack Schneider , director of the Center for Education Policy who helped lead the survey.
UMass researchers sampled about 18,000 teachers, reaching out to them via email this summer. The researchers received 1,179 completed surveys back. According to the research paper’s methodology, responses were weighted to match the demographics of Massachusetts' teachers regarding gender identity, race/ethnicity, age, area of the state, and grade level taught.
Surveyed teachers reported their biggest challenges in the classroom were student disinterest and low motivation (60% of respondents), unclear standards around student discipline or behavior (51%), and insufficient time for planning (45%). Nearly half of all surveyed teachers say their jobs are not sustainable in the long term.
“Teachers don't feel like their working conditions are conducive to success,” Schneider said. “They're highly motivated. They're going to show up and give their best effort anyway, but they are telling us that we need to do better in terms of investing in schools.”
Still, the majority of teachers polled say they find their work enjoyable and fulfilling.
Teachers were also asked about the general direction of education in the United States as well as their own district. The vast majority (77%) said they do not think national K-12 education is going in the right direction. This is in line with Pew Research Center’s polling of adults nationwide who see education going in the wrong direction.
Notably, only 43% of Massachusetts teachers surveyed said they thought their own district was going in the wrong direction; 38% think their district is going in the right direction.
Schneider said the researchers intend to release more data from what they collected this fall. He said the plan is to conduct the survey of teachers annually.
Amanda Beland is a senior producer for WBUR. She also reports for the WBUR newsroom.