State releases school and district MCAS results

September 24, 2008 12:50 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Globe Staff

It's report card day. But this time, the grades are not for the students. They're for schools and school districts.

At a press conference today at Chelsea's Edgar Hooks Elementary School, Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester released the school and district results on the MCAS tests.

The numbers are closely watched by parents who are hoping that their school gets a good grade -- or, at the very least, a better one than last year.

While this year's batch of scores were largely disappointing in English, math scores hit a historic high for all grade levels. The Globe also reported last week that the percentage of sophomores who passed the MCAS on the first try this year declined for the first time because thousands of students failed the science section, a new graduation requirement.

Twenty percent of the class of 2010 failed at least one portion of the test, compared with 13 percent last year.

Chester, however, took the opportunity today to praise improvement in MCAS scores at a host of schools around the state, including Edgar Hooks Elementary. Third- and fourth-graders at that school saw significant improvement in their scores on the English and math exams last spring.

"As a Commonwealth, we can learn from schools like Edgar Hooks that have found the right combination of focus, innovation, and improvement in curriculum and instruction. As a result, their students are making great gains."

School principal Adele Lubarsky and school superintendent Thomas Kingston credited the good work to joint efforts by administrators and teachers to improve instruction along with setting high standards.

Chester also highlighted outstanding improvement at many high schools including Fitchburg High, Madison Park High in Boston, Brighton High, Danvers High, Salem High, Bristol-Plymouth Vocational Technical, Putnam Vocational Technical High, Whittier Regional Vocational, Montachusett Regional Vocational, and Shawsheen Valley Vocational Technical.