When I taught high school in Virginia in the early 2020s, I was only vaguely aware of the existence of something called “portrait of a graduate.” Whatever this portrait was, it didn’t seem to impact my daily work, so it didn’t capture my attention. On the other hand, I knew my IB courses and our state assessments backward and forward. Those shaped what we did in the classroom.
Since then, portraits of a graduate (or, sometimes, of a learner) have spread to at least 26 states, plus many more districts. The rationales vary—student disengagement, misalignment with evolving workforce demands, equity concerns—but the final product is typically a list of broad “competencies” that schools are meant to cultivate in each student. These range from the academic (“reason quantitatively”) to soft skills (“collaboration and teamwork”) to the warm and fuzzy (“embraces differences/diversity”).
I like to think schools were already doing the four to 15 items featured in each portrait. But as I experienced in Virginia, what actually affects students is not those specific items, but instead the practical requirements that change—or don’t—as a result of implementation.
As I’ve already written, I’m deeply skeptical of New York’s approach. To borrow from the immortal words of Cher Horowitz, the Empire State’s portrait is a “full-on Monet”: “It’s like the paintings, see? From far away, it’s OK, but up close, it’s a big old mess.” That is, seemingly unobjectionable competencies like “creative innovator” and “critical thinker” give way, upon inspection, to an apparent disregard for rigor, consistency, and transparency.
And unlike impressionist art, education policy can’t afford to brush over the details.
Fortunately, though, not every state portrait is trending Monet. To the contrary, the most recent portrait-of-a-learner proposal from Massachusetts is promising and could offer a model for other states heading in this direction.
Admittedly, the Bay State’s portrait puts forth its own hokey competencies, like “self-aware navigators.” But behind the jargon is a proposed system that specifies four sets of requirements for high school graduation: end-of-course (EOC) exams, a culminating experience, postsecondary planning, and, like 46 other states, required coursework.
The state EOC exam requirement is arguably where Massachusetts’s proposal differs most from New York’s. Two years ago, Massachusetts voters eliminated the state’s much-lauded MCAS test as a graduation requirement—much like the Board of Regents has done to New York’s erstwhile exit exams—but the Bay State hasn’t abandoned the concept of a consistent, externally validated measure of student learning. According to the plan, the new EOC assessments will be aligned with specific courses in English language arts, math, science, and potentially social studies, and they will be “designed, administered, and scored” by the state. Of course, the value of those exams will depend on how high Massachusetts sets the bar, and what the state does with the results.
Still, compare this to New York, where as-of-yet-undefined “assessments” are just one of many suggested options for gauging students’ graduation readiness, alongside performances, presentations, portfolios, and for all I know, baking soda volcanoes and shoebox dioramas—all to be designed and scored by the students’ own teachers. Even with a statewide rubric and the best of intentions, I can’t fathom how teachers could ensure consistency in scoring for “effective communicator” across a research paper on the Cold War, a dramatic recitation of a Shakespearean soliloquy, and a presentation on the works of Sabrina Carpenter.
With EOC assessments baked into the graduation requirement, Massachusetts will be far better equipped to identify where students and schools need more support, which is crucial for educational equity. And, as long as standards are set high enough, its proposed system will also ensure that all students are held to a high standard.
The exams aren’t the whole story, either. Even Massachusetts’s most flexible graduation requirements offer more consistency than anything in New York’s plans to date. Bay State students will need to complete a “culminating experience”: either a capstone project or a portfolio of assessments. Districts (not individual teachers) will define and score students’ culminating experiences based on a statewide rubric.
This is potentially a deft compromise: Stakeholders wanted students to demonstrate learning beyond traditional testing. The culminating experience allows some local discretion while ensuring consistency within districts. Most importantly, it comes in addition to—not instead of—statewide exam requirements that enable education leaders to compare results across districts, schools, and student subgroups. In short, Massachusetts hasn’t thrown the baby out with the bathwater; it’s found a way to honor the valid concern that a test can’t fully capture a student’s knowledge without effectively letting every school create its own set of graduation requirements.
Finally, the Bay State’s “postsecondary planning” recommendation includes several substantive components that address oft-cited concerns about students’ readiness for life after high school: demonstration of financial and digital literacy, federal and state financial aid application completion (or opt-out), and work-based learning experiences that may include internships, community service, and the like.
Of these, New York’s current proposal mentions only the potential for work-based learning, suggesting that districts could choose to “increase opportunities for career-connected learning.” It’s not clear whether any more substantive postsecondary preparation will become part of New York’s requirements.
Lest readers see New York’s haziness as excusable, since full implementation won’t occur until 2029, I’ll observe that Massachusetts has until 2031. That gives the Bay State a full five years to develop materials, train educators, and fine-tune the details. There’s just no excuse for New York to be building the plane while flying it when 860,000 high schoolers’ educations are at stake every year.
In sum, the aspirational nature of portraits of a graduate needn’t come at the expense of substantive graduation requirements—the stuff that actually shapes instruction and learning. States adopting portraits would do well to be a Massachusetts, not a Monet.
