The Melrose Messenger

MCAS Scores Indicate Successes and Challenges for Melrose Public Schools

Last week, the Melrose School Committee reviewed the data from this year’s administration of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test. The data indicated several areas of strength for the Melrose Public Schools (MPS) and other areas that remain challenges.

The MCAS test is given each spring to all students in Massachusetts public schools in Grades 3-8 and again in Grade 10. Tests in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math are given every year, and tests in Science are given in Grades 5, 8, and 10. The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) uses MCAS test data to determine accountability ratings for each school and school district in the state. This, in turn, determines how much assistance or intervention each district may require, up to and including a district being taken out of local control and put into state receivership.

The administration of MCAS and the accountability ratings system were temporarily put on hold during the pandemic. Districts across the state experienced a drop in scores when testing fully resumed in the spring of 2022, and many are just now beginning to recover from the loss of learning during the pandemic.

Currently, all Massachusetts high school students must receive a passing score on MCAS in order to graduate. There is a statewide question on the ballot this November proposing to remove MCAS as a graduation requirement; this would not change the administration of MCAS, or alter how it is used to determine accountability ratings for schools.

Overall, this year’s MCAS results indicate that MPS is a high-performing school district compared to many other districts in the state. The elementary schools' rankings ranged from the Lincoln Elementary School in the 72nd percentile to the Horace Mann Elementary School in the 97th percentile. Melrose High School (MHS) fell into the 81st percentile, and the Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School (MVMMS), the district’s lowest performing school, was in the 58th percentile.

“Certainly we still have areas that we need to work on, nobody is denying that...but generally speaking, there is some really good news that we should be proud of,” said Dr. Jennifer Turner, the Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, at last week’s meeting.

Although the district’s overall scores were high compared with many other districts, Dr. Turner, Superintendent Adam Deleidi, and several School Committee members all expressed concern over several aspects of the data.

For one, as is true for many school districts in Massachusetts, subgroup disproportionality in the scores was quite high. This means that several subgroups within the school population in MPS - students with disabilities, English language learners, and African American or Black students - were scoring significantly lower than their peers. In Grades 3-8, 28% of students who are classified as high needs - English language learners, student with disabilities, or those who come from low income households - met or exceeded expectations in ELA and 31% in Math, compared with 74% of non-high needs students in ELA and 77% in Math.

This is not a new problem for MPS. “Disproportionality existed before the pandemic,” the 2024 MCAS Executive Summary noted, “and it continues today in our district and others. In fact, we know that the pandemic impacted marginalized populations more than majority populations and so in many ways it should not be surprising that the impacts on post-pandemic performance are greater on those in marginalized populations.”

“School is a microcosm of society,” Dr. Turner told the School Committee, “and we know there are multiple systems and structures in our society that have been built with the express purpose of oppressing marginalized groups of people and they do it quite well, so we are battling an uphill battle here.” Dr. Turner enumerated some ways MPS aims to address subgroup disproportionality, including the new language-based program at the Hoover Elementary School, policy changes, and more extensive work with India Barrows, the shared Coordinator for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Superintendent Adam Deleidi noted, “This is a high performing district, but that can be dangerous. When you have a teacher with 25 kids in the class and 22 of them are performing at or above grade level, it’s human nature to say, ‘Well, those other three…it’s not me, because I’m doing well with all the other 22.’...I want to think about what we’re doing for those other three,” he continued, “That’s sort of the subtle shift that I want to start to make here, is let’s focus on those margins, and then I think everybody benefits.”

MVMMS continues to be an area of concern as well, as the lowest-performing school in MPS according to the MCAS data. “Middle school is the perfect storm for low scores,” said Dr. Turner, identifying as challenges the larger student population compared to any of the elementary schools, transitions to multiple classes, the addition of new subjects along with reduced time spent in core academic subjects, “and oh, by the way, it’s the most tumultuous time in a child’s development that there is.”

The School Committee approved several changes to MVMMS for this year, including more staff for smaller class sizes and a new schedule that allowed for more instructional time in core subjects as well as specific classes dedicated to intervention and working with 6th graders on organizational skills. “Those investments at the middle school have been very costly,” noted School Committee member Jennifer McAndrew, “because they’ve basically been added by taking away from other parts of the district,” including shifting staff and positions from the elementary schools and MHS to MVMMS, which resulted in larger class sizes at several schools.

School Committee member Dorie Withey also expressed concern over the number of students who are not testing at grade level, especially at MVMMS. “We’re talking about 44% of kids who are not yet meeting expectations in Math. That’s 390 students,” she said. “I saw that data and started to feel like there’s a crisis here.”

Melanie Acevedo, the Director of Data, Assessment, and Instructional Technology, showed data from three different cohorts of students, noting that this can indicate how different groups of students are recovering from loss of learning during the pandemic. The class of 2026, which was in 6th grade in 2020, showed “evidence of tremendous recovery” by the time they took MCAS last year in 10th grade. The class of 2028, which was in 4th grade in 2020, has not yet returned to where their scores were before the pandemic, and the class of 2031, which was in 1st grade in 2020, still shows lower scores overall than previous classes did, although, Acevedo said, “when you look at their data, you see a small but steady growth upward as they took MCAS in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades.”

“The most important thing that I want to highlight here is that we are going to stay the course,” emphasized Dr. Turner. “There is no quick and easy answer that we can just plug in and fix the areas of growth that we’re seeing.”

The discussion returned several times to the resources available to the school district, which were reduced following the citywide vote in June that rejected a property tax override.

“I do not think it is rosy,” said McAndrew, “and I don’t think anyone is trying to gloss over what the challenges are...You are dealing with fewer administrators because we had to cut them because we didn’t have the budget. No instructional coaches because we had to cut them because we didn’t have the budget. Fewer classroom educators because we had to cut them because we didn’t have the budget...Less professional development, fewer instructional materials, and less technology subscriptions.”

“In order to sustain this work,” said Dr. Turner, “we do need to make significant future investments...We have to be able to keep our students with special needs in the district, with their peers, as much as possible,” she added. When the needs of a student with a disability are not met within MPS, that student is entitled by law to have MPS pay for their education in another school district or at a private school. Tuition and transportation costs for these out-of-district placements can often be many times what it would cost to educate that same student within MPS.

“We are doing all that we can with what we have,” Dr. Turner continued. “Thanks to the hard work of our staff we are making progress, but we are stretched very thin, and there is nothing left to reduce or cut without significant negative impacts on learning.”

You can read the 2024 MCAS Executive Summary in last week's School Committee agenda packet, starting on page 104.

Posted October 14th, 2024