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Date: 10/5/2021
EASTHAMPTON – With 2021 MCAS results officially released to the public, Easthampton Superintendent Allison LeClair and Curriculum Director Julie Anne Levin reflected on where the district stands regarding the standardized test.
“We’re pleased that we can report that we had over 90 percent student participation across all levels in Easthampton,” said LeClair. “Given the very challenging school year last year, we are very pleased with that.”
Grade 10 students performed around the state level or exceeded the state level in many instances for both English language arts (ELA) and math, according to the information provided by the Department of Education and LeClair. Grade 10 is when students must pass the test in those two categories as a graduation requirement. The chart indicates that Easthampton made substantial progress toward its targets and saw a slight increase in the number of students who met expectations in ELA.
For grades 3-8, LeClair said that many Easthampton students performed better than the state in both ELA and science in some instances. As a group, they were generally neck and neck with the commonwealth’s averages.
The district did not perform as well in the math category, as evidenced by a slight decline in students meeting MCAS math expectations between 2019 and 2021 – there was no MCAS in 2020 due to the pandemic – but according to LeClair, that has a lot to do with the district implementing a different math curriculum after years of trying to figure out different sequencing. The district has been piloting this new curriculum over the past couple of years, and the students who have had it the longest – specifically eighth graders – performed best out of anyone in the math category.
According to Levin, who has been with the district for six years, COVID-19 impacted the test itself in a major way. The administered test handed out to grades 3 through 8 was much more abbreviated than past years, and therefore it was more difficult to compare 2021 results from past years. For example, some tests were only 20 questions long, whereas past tests were more comprehensive and gave students more leeway to make mistakes, thus allowing the district to truly get a glimpse of how students are performing. Therefore, according to Levin, the data was a little more skewed in that regard.
“One question could have completely changed the outcome of the percentages when there’s only 20 questions on a test,” said Levin. “When the test is longer and there’s three questions per standard, then we just get a better sense of how the program is affecting the student’s outcome.”
She added that it was nice to see the state alleviate some of the stress from students who are returning to in-person learning with a shorter test, but it is more difficult to create a snapshot of whether the program is truly working based on 2021 results. Regardless, she commended teachers for working with the students during this challenging period and doing everything they can to push the district to the state average, especially since Easthampton participated in remote learning for the majority of the 2020-21 school year. “It was not regular circumstances, so the fact that we’re riding state averages is quite extraordinary,” said Levin.
According to both administrators, Easthampton does not take a rigid approach to MCAS prep. They would rather have their teachers focus on the core curricula and tie their teachings into preparations for the test. “We want good teaching all the time and that’s what we want the scores to reflect, not that we put in extra time for specific MCAS prep,” said Levin.
LeClair continued by saying that the district is continuing to shift their focus to students’ social-emotional learning and how to address the challenges they have faced over the past 18 months. The district spent much of its time creating a classroom culture in a remote setting. “Our teachers took a lot of time to create that safe and comfortable place for our students to be able to access learning,” she said.
When it comes to improvements, Levin said that the district’s vision about raising the achievement floor for MCAS falls in line with the state’s vision. Even with progress being made, Levin noted the presence of equity gaps as something the district could still work on regarding performance, specifically amongst students with disabilities and for students who are economically-disadvantaged.
“We know those equity gaps exist, and we still need to solve them,” said Levin. “We still have a lot of students in the district of specific demographics not having as great of outcomes as we’d like them to have. That’s always going to be an area of growth for everywhere in the state, but it’s nice to know that’s a focus in Easthampton.”