After multiple attempts, MCAS success

After finishing high school two years ago, Miguel Reyes searched for a job as a security guard. Doors shut in his face, because he didn't have a diploma, even though he had passed all his classes in high school.

He was a member of the Class of 2003, the first group of students in the state that had to pass the MCAS in English and math to get a high school diploma. But Reyes had taken the English part multiple times in high school and afterward. Each time, he failed.

His friends urged him to give up. ''You're not going to make it," they would say. Reyes, whose first language is Spanish, had to write a good essay, in English.

In November, he took the test again in the gym of his former high school, Greater Lawrence Technical School in Andover. At age 20, on his sixth try, he passed.

He is one of 14 students from the Class of 2003 in Massachusetts who met the graduation standard after the most recent retest, state education officials said yesterday.

Four of those students took the test eight times. Two years out of school, the former students said they persisted for a shot at a better-paying job, a chance at college, dreams made possible only with a high school diploma.

Their success boosts their class's passing rate to 95 percent. When they first took the tests as sophomores, only 68 percent of students passed. Approximately 3,000 members of their class never passed the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam, according to the state Education Department.

Fewer students try as the years march on. The test has been controversial since its inception, partly because many educators feared it would discourage black and Hispanic students from graduating.

Reyes, who aspires to be a police officer, ignored his friends' advice to quit trying. ''Hey, you never know. If other people did it, I can, too," he told them.

Current students also would tease him, ''Oh, you're here again?" when he would come to take the MCAS yet another time.

''I just kept walking," Reyes said. ''It's my future. It's my diploma. It's what I want."

To prepare for the tests each time, he took MCAS tutoring at his old school and read books on his own. He couldn't get help from his parents, who had emigrated from the Dominican Republic and spoke only Spanish. When not studying, he loaded trucks at a Woburn warehouse for $8.50 an hour. He lives with his mother because he can't afford rent.

Classmates who had passed the MCAS were in college, he said. Those who didn't worked at fast-food restaurants.

With a diploma, Reyes knew he could get automatically accepted to a community college and would be able to apply to a four-year university. Community colleges require either a diploma or a GED.

Reyes was frustrated that manual labor was the only job he could get after four years of high school and wanted to do better.

He tried to persuade his friends to join him on his quest for a bonafide diploma, rather than settle for the certificate of attainment many of them had received, indicating they passed their classes, but not the MCAS. They told him the tests were too hard and that they didn't want to waste their time.

The state tries to make it easy for students to retest, requiring them only to get in touch with their former high schools.

''The door is always open," said Heidi Perlman, Education Department spokeswoman. ''They can come back whenever they want to try again. They can come back when they're 30."

Melissa Williams, 21, made her eighth attempt at the math MCAS when she was nine months pregnant last fall. She felt awkward in a classroom full of younger students, she said, but knew it was her only option.

''I wanted to get it done and over with, so I could leave in case I went into labor," Williams said. ''I wanted to show my children when they got older that their mother graduated from high school and that she went on to college."

Williams now has a 2-month-old daughter as well as a 3-year-old daughter. Her own parents had dropped out of high school after having children, she said. Williams had received training in cooking and nutrition from the Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School. After leaving the school, she tried enrolling in college but could not without a diploma. She went to work as a lunch room cook at a day care center.

Williams said she was annoyed that one test stood between her and a high school diploma. Still, motivated by former teachers, she took practice MCAS tests on the computer several times a week.

Williams received her test results in the mail two weeks ago. She opened the envelope in the car while her mother was driving her to the grocery store. She just made it, passing with the minimum score, 220. ''I was excited that I finally did it and that I don't have to go back anymore," she said. ''It was about time I passed the stupid test."

She called the school that afternoon and asked them to print up her diploma. The next day, she walked into the front office to pick up the piece of paper she had sought for two years and headed to her local college to enroll in accounting courses.

Reyes got a 230 out of a possible 280 on the English exam. He hopes to start community college in the fall to study business, criminal justice, and law.

''I'm going to go and try my best, like what I just did," he said.

Two days ago, he went to a security office in New Hampshire to apply once more to become a guard, which he thinks will help him achieve his dream of becoming a police officer.

The interviewer asked if he had a high school diploma. He answered yes firmly, but confided he first had to go to a small ceremony at his high school to receive the long-awaited piece of parchment.

Reyes got the $12 hourly job guarding office buildings in Salem, N.H. Orientation starts Wednesday.

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.