There was good news to celebrate in Vineyard public schools last week with the release of the scores from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam administered annually among elementary and high school students. Student proficiency levels are good to excellent in math and English nearly across the board, and six out of seven Island schools received top rankings under a newly-devised system this year that ranks schools on a one-to-five scale.

Six of seven schools on the Vineyard were given top rankings based on results from annual statewide standardized tests, which were released this week. The West Tisbury School received a commendation for high achievement on performance, while Tisbury School second-graders were the second highest performers in the state on the English portion of the test.

"You should have seen their faces at the end of the
testing," said regional high school history teacher Corinne Kurtz.
"They were skeletons."

Tisbury School principal Richie Smith can describe exactly the moment he learned how his students performed in the annual Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test: it was August 6, early morning, in his kitchen, on the telephone and he did cartwheels.

“Well, it was more jumps,” he revised. “But I react that way every year when I find out we made AYP.”

The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System scores are in and it’s good news and bad news for Vineyard schools.

The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School was the only Vineyard school to meet the state’s adequate yearly progress (AYP) targets in English language arts and mathematics.

MCAS Scores: What Lies Beneath

Examining the results of the annual statewide standardized school exams can be like being a kid again and looking under a big rock in the woods. We all recall that sense of discovery, turning over something that from above appeared a lifeless shape of stone and finding that it sheltered teeming activity of all kinds. Suddenly there was much more to study.

The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System scores released this week reveal conflicting trends in Vineyard schools, where individual classes excelled but schools as a whole did not progress enough to meet new state and federal benchmarks.

The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School was the only school to meet the state’s adequate yearly progress (AYP) targets in English and math. However, Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss this week called higher cutoff levels one of the reasons the schools were falling short of the targets.