MATTAPOISETT — Since its establishment in 1993, the state has used the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System to assess students’ academic performance and as a graduation requirement for Massachusetts high school students, but a new bill going before the Massachusetts House of Representatives aims to change that.

At its Thursday, Feb. 1 meeting, the Old Rochester Regional School Committee voted unanimously to write a draft resolution in support of Bill H.495, or the “Thrive Act,” a bill that, if passed, would remove the MCAS as a graduation requirement for Massachusetts high schools.

A version of this bill, S.246, is also going through the Massachusetts Senate. Both bills have been referred to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Education to be heard during this year’s legislative session.

“The ‘Thrive Act’ is on the legislative agenda for this year and the idea is to pretty much eliminate the power the MCAS has over schools,” said Old Rochester Regional School Committee member Margaret McSweeny. “Not necessarily eliminating MCAS as a data piece but eliminating it as a graduation requirement and eliminating it as a way to penalize schools who are not meeting scores.”

According to the language of the bill, the “Thrive Act” would retain the MCAS as a data collection tool for school districts across the Commonwealth and individual districts would be responsible for setting their own graduation standards.

“Standardized testing can give a lot of information potentially to administrators and school districts over the long term … but to use them punitively is unconscionable,” said Old Rochester Regional School Committee member James Muse.

Massachusetts is one of eight states — Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming — that currently uses a standardized test as a graduation requirement.

“There doesn’t seem to be an educational philosophy among these states. There’s real diversity between those states in terms of how you think about their educational programs, whether they’re red or blue,” said Old Rochester Regional School Committee member Matthew Monteiro. “I do think it’s notable that it's not necessarily a political angle … it seems like more of an artifact that we’re using [the MCAS] for this purpose.”

The “Thrive Act” would also allow struggling schools to appoint an 11-member board to address “comprehensive support and improvement using a formula developed by the department that complies with the criteria and processes in federal education law,” according to the bill.

This board would consist of the district’s superintendent, a school committee member, the local teacher’s union president, a school administrator, two teachers, a parent of a student at the school, a high school student or someone who brings appropriate grade-level knowledge, a social services educator, a member of a community organization and a subject matter expert.

Currently, under the 1993 education reform act that established the MCAS, struggling schools can be taken over by Massachusetts Education Commissioner, which would supersede the authority of a local school committee.

Already, the bill has garnered support from 77 Massachusetts representatives and 30 senators.

10th Bristol and Plymouth Representative Bill Straus (D-Mattapoisett), who represents the Tri-Town, did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding his thoughts on the “Thrive Act.”

Opponents of the “Thrive Act,” including Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education Director Ed Lambert, say that the act would return the Massachusetts education system to a “dark period” of “savage inequality.”

“Eliminating a statewide standard for graduation in favor of having over 300 local standards will diminish the value of a high school diploma to the detriment of the Commonwealth and its students,” he said at an October hearing of the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Education. “ Rather than changing the standard we should do more to help every student achieve it.”

The Old Rochester Regional School Committee did not decide on any language for the draft resolution at Thursday’s meeting. The draft will be presented and discussed at the Committee’s next regularly-scheduled meeting on Thursday, March 7.

“The idea that there is a standardized test that supersedes all of the educational accomplishments students have over the course of four years of high school and denies them … the ability to advance their lives … is extremely punitive and is extremely arbitrary in the way it’s done,” said Muse.