A closing of the achievement gap
IT'S RARE that good news becomes so routine that it's almost ho-hum, but we may just have reached that point with education reform.
Thirteen years after Massachusetts passed a landmark law that dramatically increased state spending on public education in exchange for higher standards, we are witnessing real public policy payoffs.
You can see that in the impressive statewide MCAS results for the class of 2008.
Start with the fact that 84 percent of students passed both math and English on their first try, up from 81 percent last year. Now, At the passing threshold the MCAS exam only requires about an eighth-grade level of knowledge, which shouldn't be particularly hard for a high school sophomore. So earning a competency determination by scoring in the ``needs improvement" category hardly means a student knows all he or she should.
But there's good news there as well. The proportion of students scoring at the proficient or advanced levels on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System -- levels that are more difficult to achieve -- has also increased significantly. On the English exam, the percentage who reached proficient or advanced rose from 64 to 70 percent, while the percentage who hit that level on math jumped from 61 to 67 percent.
We also saw big performance gains for African-American and Hispanic students; 68 percent of black students earned their competency determination on their first try, up from 58 percent last year (and 37 percent in 2001), while 61 percent of Hispanic students passed both tests, up from 53 percent last year (and 29 percent in 2001). What's more, this year's results showed double-digit increases in the percentage of black and Hispanic students who scored proficient on the English exam.
``For the first time, we are seeing a closing of the achievement gap," Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said yesterday.
Yes, the same data give cause for concern at the elementary and middle-school grades, where flat or declining scores mean that more work needs to be done as schools strive to meet the federal requirement of math and reading proficiency.
Still, at the high school level, these MCAS results were really something. This is an impressive achievement for students, teachers, and administrators -- and we should take a minute to celebrate what they've accomplished.
When I see results like these, I can't help but recall the gloom and doom that surrounded the MCAS in 2001, when the test first started to matter, since it would be a graduation requirement for students who would finish high school in two years. The previous year, only 48 percent had passed both tests.
``Everybody said we were going to heck in handbasket," Driscoll remembers.
But in 2001, 68 percent of sophomores passed both tests on the first try, and thus the panic started to subside.
The new results show the important progress we've made since then.
Although critics sometimes claim that the MCAS exam leads to little beyond the teaching of MCAS test-taking skills, our results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, known as the nation's report card, belies that argument. Last year, our fourth- and eighth-graders students led their peers on that test.
Further, while some other states have set lower proficiency standards in order to finesse the national No Child Left Behind Act, Massachusetts hasn't. Unlike some of those places, our MCAS proficiency levels track well with what our students achieve on the NAEP exam.
We've also had some good news on charter schools. A recent state-sponsored study found that 60 percent of charters did about as well as the sending district, while students at another 30 percent performed ``significantly higher" on the MCAS. About 10 percent of the charters were below district performance.
The same study said that charters, many of which feature a longer school day than traditional public schools, have been successful in boosting the performance of minority and low-income students.
On all fronts, these are heartening results. A good education is increasingly necessary for economic success, but nationally, colleges report that many high school graduates are not prepared to do college-level work.
Here, we are clearly making progress toward preparing them.
Student scores on the MCAS, last year's nation-leading performance on the NAEP exam, and the good grade that charter schools have just won are public policy successes -- successes to keep in mind as you evaluate the candidates' positions in this year's gubernatorial campaign.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com. 
