Without ending poverty and despair, MCAS can do little except further punish those already punished enough. But to be credible our claim needs to be backed up by more focused efforts to reduce those income and resource gaps while supporting existing efforts by urban residents to improve their schools and their communities. MCAS may die, or at least be suspended, if it becomes politically unfeasible to withhold diplomas from thousands of students. That would be a good thing. But it won't fix overloaded and overpunished schools across the state.
Poor education remains a symptom.
The broad anti-MCAS alliance must confront the cause.