Franklin County and the North Quabbin’s 2022 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) results held relatively steady over the previous year as schools began inching their way back to a more-normal learning experience this past spring.
Prior to the pandemic, approximately 86% of Franklin County and North Quabbin students scored in the “meets or exceeds expectations” and the “partially meeting expectations” categories. In 2021 and 2022, after two years of pandemic disruptions, that number dropped to 77%. Scores were released on Sept. 29 and districts and area school committees have been analyzing the results since then.
In Orange, Ralph C. Mahar’s scores throughout the pandemic have been similar to those before schools went remote, which Superintendent Elizabeth Teahan-Zielinski said is a “real plus” after two years of disrupted learning.
“There’s still a lot of gaps and still a lot of work for us to improve and have better scores,” Zielinski said in a phone interview. “We’re beginning to go back to normal and we do need to move forward.”
In English and math, 23% and 26% of Mahar’s middle school students are meeting or exceeding expectations, respectively, while 40% of its 10th graders met or exceeded expectations in both of those subjects.
Those scores are similar to 2021’s results and Teahan-Zielinski said she is hopeful the return to normal schooling will give them a boost because the steadiness of a school schedule can help students succeed.
“It’s really going back and reestablishing the rituals and the routines of school,” Teahan-Zielinski said, adding that the beginning of this year — the first without pandemic precautions — was tough. “I’m not going to lie, this year was a rough start … that’s why getting back to rituals, routines and expectations is important.”
At the Oct. 12 Greenfield School Committee meeting, the committee and Superintendent Christine DeBarge discussed the district’s results, which showed that in grades three though eight, 15% of students in English language arts and 14% of students in math are meeting or exceeding expectations The state averages are 41% and 39%, respectively. DeBarge said Greenfield Middle School’s performance is in the lowest 5% across the state and the school has been designated for federal support.
“I wanted to express how shocking it is to see a level of proficiency at ELA at 16%, that means we have a huge supermajority of students who are not getting to that point.” said Greenfield School Committee member Kate Martini. “I appreciate that it’s just MCAS, but MCAS has a big impact on a kids’ life.”
Martini noted that “as, a parent, our pre-pandemic levels of student achievement were not good” either.
At Greenfield High School, 39% of 10th graders met or exceeded expectations in English and 36% of them met or exceeded expectations in math, compared to the state average of 58% and 50%.
DeBarge said the district will “dig a little deeper” into the data to see what can be done.
“I do not disagree with you in any way. We’ve had this data less than two weeks and there’s going to be a lot more data analysis,” DeBarge said. “We did look at how our subgroups are performing and we’re not where we should be.”
While the Pioneer Valley Regional School District School Committee did not address MCAS scores at their meeting last Thursday, Superintendent Patricia Kinsella shared some of her thoughts on their schools’ results in the district newsletter.
“The 2022 MCAS results are what we all predicted, with overall scores still lower than before the pandemic,” Kinsella wrote. “After several years of interrupted learning, how could they be any different?”
For Pioneer’s third through eighth graders, 36% met or exceeded expectations in English, while 22% met or exceeded expectations in math. For 10th graders, 53% met or exceeded expectations in English, while 55% achieved the same marks in math.
On top of not being surprised at the scores because of the major disruptions caused by the pandemic, Kinsella joined a growing chorus of people that say the MCAS is not an effective means of assessing students’ progress, nor is it effective in helping teachers develop.
“I’m going out on a public limb here, but at this point in my career, I am confident in stating that if the purpose of assessment is to improve student learning, then MCAS has failed at its purpose,” Kinsella wrote. “It provides us neither the quality nor the timeliness of information we need to teach the students who are in our classrooms here and now.”
Teahan-Zielinski said there’s “always been assessments” of students’ learning throughout history, but it is important to note that MCAS is “only one measure” and students continue to learn and grow once they finish their 10th grade testing.
“The MCAS gives you a dipstick into where the kids are, but every child learns at a different rate and a different pace,” she said. “If MCAS is the only measure, there’s still two more years of learning and growth.”
Kinsella and Teahan-Zielinski’s thoughts echo an August letter signed by a group of 98 state legislators, including the majority of the delegation representing Franklin and Hampshire counties. In that letter, the legislators say the assessment focuses on only a few of the skills that students learn in school.
“High-stakes tests, such as MCAS, focus learning on a narrow range of skills, to the detriment of skills needed in the wider world such as problem solving, innovation, communication, social skills, emotional resilience, appreciation of diversity, and teamwork skills,” the letter stated.
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.