BPS officers spotlight features in MCAS, college efficiency, as ‘sobering’ challenges stay

BPS touted some features in MCAS efficiency, continual absenteeism drops and different areas within the current launch of state knowledge for the 2024-25 college yr, whereas college committee members locked in on main underlying challenges.

“I know for me, this data is always very sobering,” mentioned College Committee Chair Jeri Robinson, because the about five-hour assembly reached its conclusion. “In terms of thinking about what’s next, I only have two words: urgency and accountability. And I think those are the two things I’m really most interested in understanding as we take this information back to individual schools and teachers.”

BPS officers offered the MCAS and district accountability knowledge launched by DESE statewide final week on the late-running assembly Wednesday. Together with standardized testing scores, the information consists of progress metrics, highschool commencement charges, English proficiency, continual absenteeism and superior coursework completion.

The district began off with highlights from the discharge, together with a continued discount in continual absenteeism for practically all grade ranges and scholar teams, a five-year excessive within the English proficiency charges for highschool multilingual learners, and BPS’s classification as making average progress in direction of its targets.

“I’m pleased to share that the district is moving in the right direction,” Superintendent Mary Skipper started the presentation. “Boston’s data shows encouraging progress in literacy for grades 3 through 8, with more students meeting or exceeding expectations in both Math and English Language Arts across nearly all student groups. For grade 10, ELA and Math remain areas for continued focus. According to our analysis, Boston outperformed districts across Massachusetts and other large cities in the Commonwealth.”

Regardless of the progress made in sure areas, college committee members famous, the underlying ranges stay areas of concern.

“It doesn’t sit well with me that we can say, that the state can say we’re making moderate progress, and just 29% of kids in grades 3 to 8 meet or exceed expectations in ELA,” mentioned member Brandon Cardet-Hernandez. “That doesn’t feel like real progress.”

Although the district made headway when it comes to continual absenteeism, Cardet-Hernandez known as it “alarming” that also nearly half of highschool college students miss at the very least 10% of college days all year long.

Regardless of rises or flatlines in MCAS scores in decrease grades, the district stays behind its pre-pandemic testing efficiency from 2019. This displays a lag on a statewide stage, although BPS outperformed the state in a number of classes.

The district additionally famous areas the place college students and colleges are falling additional behind. These embrace decreases or stagnation in tenth grade MCAS scores throughout all classes, with comparable boundaries to progress among the many lowest performing tenth grade college students.