RE “The MTA’s myopic agenda’’: The Globe’s Feb. 12 editorial was on target with its criticism of the state’s largest teachers union. With its proposed legislation targeting the MCAS, the Massachusetts Teachers Association is demonstrating yet again a transparent agenda to protect its members at the expense of a high-quality education for our public school students statewide.

The 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act infused billions of dollars into our public schools. Governor William Weld, state Senator Thomas Birmingham, and state Representative Mark Roosevelt were the principal authors who worked with Beacon Hill to create a national model for school reform, part of which included student and teacher accountability. To ensure this accountability, the MCAS test was developed over time and has become part of the ethos of our world-class schools.

As part of the 1993 law, students must fulfill their district’s graduation requirements as well as pass the 10th-grade MCAS. Informed citizens realize that this test is written at an eighth- to ninth-grade level and that students have as many as five opportunities to pass the test in order to demonstrate minimal competency for graduation.

Does the MTA, or any reasonable taxpayer, believe this test is too demanding or that we should possibly abolish it? For the sake of our students, present and future, I certainly hope not.

Paul Hoss

Marshfield

The author is a retired Massachusetts public school teacher with 35 years in the Scituate Public Schools.