LYNNFIELD — In the recently released 2023 MCAS scores, the town’s school district has been identified as making substantial progress toward its targets.
The town’s criterion-referenced target percentage is 71% — the second-best in the region, after Marblehead’s 75%. The criterion-referenced target percentage measures districts’ progress toward improvement targets and combines multiple years of data related to achievement, growth, high-school completion, English-learner progress, advanced-coursework completion, and chronic absenteeism.
Superintendent of Schools Kristen Vogel weighed in on the district’s performance and said that, overall, she and other officials are pleased with its results.
“This is just one measuring stick, as we also rely on our local assessments to provide a more complete picture of student growth and achievement,” Vogel said. “We have identified some focus areas and are in the process of developing an action plan to ensure we remain on the right track.”
This year, 50% of students in grades three through eight exceeded expectations in English language arts, which is a slight increase from last year’s 49%.
While in 2022, 53% of students from grades three through eight exceeded expectations in math, this year the percentage dropped slightly to 52%. Science saw more of a drop, with 46% of students from grades five through eight exceeding expectations in comparison to last year’s 56%.
53% of 10th-graders exceeded expectations in ELA — a sharp decline from the previous year, when 66% of them did so. For 10th-graders, there was a similar drop in science, with 46% of students exceeding expectations in 2023 and 61% of students exceeding expectations in 2022. 61% of 10th-graders exceeded expectations in math — a welcome increase from last year’s 56%.
Vogel said that comparing this year’s performance to the last few years is complex.
“This is our first full accountability report since 2019 due to the pandemic, so it is difficult to compare to previous years,” Vogel said. “We are making substantial progress toward our targets as a whole. One highlight is a higher percentage of students in ELA exceeding expectations across the district compared to previous years. We believe this reflects our high-quality curriculum, robust professional development, and our multi-tiered systems of support model. As a result, our teachers and students are most prepared to meet and exceed expectations.”
According to Vogel, the School Committee is working on devising an action plan to factor in all the various focus areas to assess student learning.
“Our local assessments typically are an accurate predictor of MCAS performance,” Vogel said. “These local assessments are what really inform our decision-making as we provide timely interventions in response to student data. We also rely on classroom observations and other factors when making decisions regarding student progress and support. We are in the process of developing an action plan which will be presented publicly at our November School Committee meeting.”
