Linking standardized test scores to the ability to graduate from public high schools in Massachusetts is “punitive and destructive” for students, an organization backing a proposal to scrap the MCAS from student graduation requirements said Wednesday.

Advocates with the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance argue there is no correlation between a state having a graduation exam requirement and overall academic performance. And the group wants state lawmakers to pass a bill that instead requires local school districts to certify tenth graders’ mastery of math, science and technology, and English.

“If you are going to test us, help us, give us the resources and the tools,” Vatsady Sivongxay, executive director of the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance, said at a press conference. “Don’t just take the data and run with it”

The alliance  — which is backed by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, Boston Teachers Union, and American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts — said the MCAS would still be administered and used to assess student performance under the bill they support.

But a proposed state commission would be tasked with studying and making recommendations on a “more authentic and accurate system for assessing students, schools, and school districts,” according to the bill text.

Fenway High School senior Eliana Rivas said if state officials see low MCAS scores at her school it is not because students there are unqualified to go to community college or start a career.

“It was because a lot of the students, English language learners, students with autism, the MCAS was not made for them,” Rivas said. “It was not created for them to succeed and for them to look like they were on track to graduate.”

But supporters of the exam, like advocates with Education Reform Now, said Massachusetts should instead look to reform the test, not get rid of it.

The test should be translated into multiple languages, families of students should understand what test results mean, and officials should put in place a consistent measure of how test data is used, said Education Reform Now Executive Director Mary Tamer.

Asking local school districts to certify students’ mastery of coursework would lead to different standards all across the state, Tamer said.

“We do need to know that a Massachusetts diploma actually means something,” Tamer told the Herald. “And if we take away all of these measures, here’s an expression: we don’t know what we don’t measure.’ How do we know what a diploma truly stands for if there are no standards behind it?”

The proposal backed by the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance also looks to end existing state receiverships of school districts within one year and replace them with a “comprehensive support and improvement system that is rooted in local community input and evidence-based supports.”

Placing a school district in state receivership is not the solution to improving student performance, said Thy Nguyen, a recent Boston Public Schools graduate.

“It is obvious that receivership hasn’t helped out a district like Lawrence so how can it be effective on BPS, a really big and complex district,” Nguyen said. Lawrence School Committee member Jonathan Guzman said receivership is an “undemocratic process” that officials created in an effort to have accountability in schools.

“Imagine your district being placed under receivership in 2011 and it was discovered in 2019 that not every student had a high quality learning opportunity that led to a successful school and post secondary experience,” Guzman said.

Boston Public Schools escaped the threat of receivership and an “underperforming” designation last year after it struck an agreement with the Department of Education, which had earlier released a damning report calling for “immediate improvement.”

At the Wednesday press conference, Boston Public Schools parent Suleika Soto said the city was able to delay the threat of receivership.

“But it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still exist,” said Soto, a supporter of the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance. “Until we pass something like the ‘Thrive Act,’ we will still be under this threat just as any other district in Massachusetts.”