New MCAS scholarship OK'd

BOURNE -- State education leaders approved a new scholarship program yesterday for students with high MCAS scores, despite concern on the part of some critics that the plan will largely exclude poor and minority students from receiving the tuition waiver.

Under the Adams Scholarship plan, adapted from a proposal made by Governor Mitt Romney last winter, the state will give free tuition at any public campus to high school graduates who score at the "advanced" level on one section of the MCAS exam and at the "proficient" level on the other section, and whose scores place them in the top 25 percent of all test takers in their school districts.

The first round of scholarships will be awarded to this year's seniors, who will be notified in the next few weeks if they qualify.

The Board of Higher Education voted 8-1 to adopt the plan at its meeting yesterday, though several members said they were worried that requiring at least one "advanced" score would exclude many students. Even before the vote approving the measure, state Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said he would work to ease the standards and open the awards up more widely.

A study based on 2002 MCAS data and released last week by Pennsylvania State University analyst Donald Heller found that few black and Hispanic students would qualify for the scholarship. Under the guidelines approved yesterday, Heller said, 20.8 percent of white students and 27 percent of Asians statewide would qualify for awards, compared with 4.1 percent of black students and 3.8 percent of Hispanics. Among students from households with incomes below $45,000, just 10 percent would qualify, compared with 26 percent of students from homes with incomes above $82,000, he found.

Ann Reale, an education adviser to Romney, said yesterday that Heller's data "has to be wrong," and that larger numbers of minorities will qualify. Heller said yesterday that he stands by his numbers, and offered to discuss his data with state officials.

Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman estimated the revised scholarship program will cost $6.3 million its first year and about $25 million a year when fully up and running.

The scholarship covers only tuition, an annual value of $740 to $1,575 -- about 25 percent of the cost of public college, not including room and board. At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the total cost this year including housing is $15,200.

The governor's first proposal called for scholarship offers to go to the top 25 percent of MCAS scorers statewide. Critics argued that his plan would send most of the money to white, wealthy students from the top school districts, and proposed a district-based award to give students in poorer communities a better chance. At Romney's insistence, the compromise included the requirement that students score "proficient" in one MCAS section and "advanced" in the other -- a proposal that Heller says will result in the awards going to fewer than 25 percent of students in some districts.

"This is a scholarship program open to everyone on the basis of merit -- black or white, rich or poor, whether you live in the city or a suburban community," Romney said in a statement yesterday.

Kathleen Kelley, the only board member to vote against the proposal yesterday, said she worries that the high bar will disqualify deserving candidates. "I have no problem with merit," she said. "My concern has always been that kids have worked tremendously hard, and overcome obstacles, to get to 'proficient,' and we're requiring 'advanced.' "

Three other board members -- student representative Shawn Robinson, Jeanne-Marie Boylan, and Driscoll, the education commissioner -- echoed Kelley's concern. Driscoll said he would prefer a requirement that students score in the "proficient" range on both MCAS sections, and vowed to "work to make that change."

At yesterday's meeting, held at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, higher education Chancellor Judith Gill said she had hoped to bring new data based on recent MCAS scores to show that more minority students would qualify for scholarships than Heller predicted, but her report was not ready. "We do know there are an increasing number of students in those categories who will be eligible, but we don't have the data today," she told the board.

Board chairman Stephen Tocco cautioned that the compromise struck with the governor and legislators contained "no wiggle room," and could unravel without a swift vote by the board. He stressed that the Adams Scholarship does not replace $100 million in need-based state financial aid.

"If we mess around with this much more, there may be a good chance we lose the whole thing," Tocco said.

The board voted to review the scholarship results in a year.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.