South Shore schools see plummeting MCAS scores amid pandemic, officials not surprised

In the first measure of student achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic, MCAS scores have plummeted since students were last tested two years ago in many districts across the South Shore and statewide.

The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System results offer a glimpse into the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic during the last year and a half after districts suddenly pivoted to remote learning. Students did not take the MCAS tests in 2020.

Math scores for students in third through eighth grades took the biggest hit in nearly every district on the South Shore since the state last administered the standardized tests in 2019. Students dropped 18 percentage points in Quincy and Milton, 14 percentage points in Braintree and 13 percentage points in Weymouth and Hingham. Marshfield saw the greatest decline locally with a 21 percent drop. 

Scores in English Language Arts took less of a hit, though still mostly dropped for students in third through eighth grades. Those scores decreased 13 percentage points in Quincy, 6 percentage points in Weymouth and 7 percentage points in Braintree. 

“The results clearly illustrate how the disrupted school year of remote and hybrid learning impacted students’ academic achievement,” Secretary of Education James Peyser said in a statement. “We will continue to work with districts to support efforts to regain learning that did not happen and promote student success and educational equity.”

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Quincy Assistant Superintendent Erin Perkins said MCAS is a snapshot in time for student achievement. While it provides a good data point, it's not the only data.

She said so many outside factors played into the outcomes, including the fact that half of students took the exams remotely.

"Education was interrupted and we need to address gaps due to the loss of learning," she said. "We all expected to see kids with significant gaps."

Perkins said  the money coming to the district through the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund could help pay for things like tutors for students that fell behind. 

Weymouth School Committee Chairwoman Lisa Belmarsh said administrators will review the results at a future school committee meeting to identify gaps and look at how to focus the district's budget and work to address them.

Statewide, the test scores of 46 percent of students in grades 3 through 8 met expectations or better in English language arts, and 33 percent did so in math. In 2019, 52 percent of students scored at that level in English language arts and 49 percent did so in math.

The state did not administer the standardized tests in the spring of 2020 after schools shifted to remote learning in March of that year. In the spring of 2021, the state shortened the exams for third through eighth graders and offered a remote option.

Gov. Charlie Baker said the results "showed exactly what I think all of us believed we would see."

"The good news, to the extent there was some, is the learning loss on the English language exams was less significant than I think people anticipated it would be," he said. "The learning loss on the math exams was pretty significant. And I think we, and our colleagues in local government, need to put a lot of the federal resources that we both received to work on a variety of acceleration academies and special programs."

State officials have said they won't penalize districts for low performance or issue school accountability ratings based on the results. Parents and guardians will have access to their children’s individual MCAS scores on Sept. 30.

Test scores of 10th graders who took the MCAS in 2021 suggest that high schoolers were less impacted by the disruption caused by the pandemic. For English language arts, 64 percent of students scores met expectations or better, compared to 61 percent in 2019. Fifty-two percent of students met expectations on the math portion, compared to 59 percent in 2019.

In Quincy, scores for 10th graders were equal to 2019 in English and down four percentage points in math. Braintree saw a more drastic drop, with a loss of nine percentage points in English and 18 in math. 

Tenth graders in some districts performed better on English language arts last year than in 2019, including Scituate, Marshfield, Norwell, Hingham and Milton. Hanover saw an increase of 12 percentage points.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association pushed back against the results and what union President Merrie Najimy called "false interpretations being put on them by groups favoring privatization and other ways to disrupt public education."

"Educators reject the narrative that students have experienced tremendous 'learning loss.' Rather, they have experienced dislocation and trauma," Najimy said in a statement. "These issues are what the results demonstrate in cities and towns across the Commonwealth, including communities of color, which have been the hardest hit by the coronavirus."

Deb McCarthy, president of the Hull Teachers Association and a fifth grade teacher, refused to administer the MCAS exam as a "conscientious objector." Quincy teachers also protested against testing last year and called for parents to opt out their children from the tests.

Material from State House News Service was used in this report.