This year’s Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test results show that Island schools are advancing toward their state-set achievement goals, outpacing other schools around the state still grappling with after-effects of the pandemic.
“I’m seeing progress across the board, and in some schools progress happening in a much more accelerated manner,” said Richard Smith, superintendent of public schools for Martha’s Vineyard.
Administered in March with results out on Tuesday, MCAS tests children in fifth through eighth grade and in their sophomore year of high school. The state also takes other measures into account, including absenteeism, advanced academic work and year-to-year progress on the tests.
On the Vineyard, nearly every school has gained ground toward achievement goals set by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Chilmark School, the smallest of the town schools with fewer than 30 children tested, earned the highest composite score — 79 per cent meeting or exceeding targets set by the state.
The Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury and West Tisbury town schools are all classified as having made “substantial progress,” with Edgartown scoring a composite 57 per cent achieving targets, Oak Bluffs at 64 per cent, Tisbury 63 per cent and West Tisbury 66 per cent.
Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School earned a composite score of 26 per cent achieving moderate progress toward targets.
The regional high school’s individual scores for math, English language arts and science reflect the overall decline in statewide trends, but the school earned points from the state for reducing chronic absenteeism from nearly 26 per cent in 2023 to 18.5 per cent in 2024.
Chronic absenteeism fell sharply at every town school as well, which Mr. Smith attributed to a combination of increased engagement with students at risk and closer attention to the way schools classify absences in state paperwork.
Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, which has about 175 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, received a composite score of 11 per cent achieving targets. But charter school director Peter Steedman was upbeat about the results, not all of which were made public by the state because some classes — including the high school sophomores — had fewer than 20 students.
“We are delighted with our scores, particularly our [English language arts] scores,” Mr. Steedman told the Gazette. “Our grades three through eight did better than the state average.”
The results, he said, confirm that the school’s experience-based educational plan is not holding kids back academically.
“It emboldens us to continue,” Mr. Steedman said.
The state dinged the charter school for testing only 93 per cent of its students with disabilities. At least 95 per cent of every student subgroup must be tested under MCAS rules to hold schools accountable for everyone they educate.
The actual number of students who missed the test was very small, Mr. Steedman said.
“We do have some families who choose not to participate in MCAS. That’s a family choice and we respect that,” he said, adding that test participation has been growing in recent years.
“We hope one day to be at 100 per cent,” Mr. Steedman said.
Schools and teachers use the MCAS results to refine their educational methods from year to year and align them with state goals, Mr. Smith said.
“We’re getting back into the culture of assessment and data-informed decision making, [and] we can use these reports to improve our practices with the kids and our interventions with all our children,” he said.
But for 10th-graders, the test is also a high-stakes exam that will determine whether or not they graduate. If they don’t earn passing scores as sophomores, they have to retake the test and pass it in order to receive a diploma.
Massachusetts is one of eight U.S. states that still require a high school exit exam, and voters in November will have the chance to vote on that mandate through a ballot measure backed by the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
Without taking a position on the ballot measure, Mr. Smith said the graduation requirement adds an extra level of anxiety to the already-fraught process of annual testing.
“I think it creates a tremendous amount of stress for our students,” he said.
“I would love to come up with a way for us to be able to use these tests .. without creating stress on students,” Mr. Smith said.
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