29 August 2024
Minnesota students’ reading and math scores on state proficiency tests aren’t dropping anymore, but they still haven’t recovered from a huge drop from the pandemic, newly released data from the state education department show.
As was the case last year, fewer than half of public school students met grade standards in reading, math and science, according to Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment results for 2024 released Thursday by the state Department of Education.
This year’s MCA results show that 45.5% of Minnesota students reached grade-level standards in math, the same as the year before. Reading scores also remained stable in 2024, with 49.9% of students testing as proficient.
Science, the lowest-scoring category at 39.6%, was up 0.4 percentage points from 2023. Last year it had dropped 2.1 percentage points.
In St. Paul, students’ overall scores had little change from those of last year. About 26% of students scored proficient in math, 34.1% were proficient in reading and 25.4% in science. The largest improvement from last year’s proficiency scores came in science at an increase of 1.4%.
Statewide, scores are down significantly since the beginning of the pandemic, which education officials say presented a challenge for students and teachers as schools closed and students shifted to remote or hybrid learning. Reading and math are both down 8.4 percentage points from 2019.
Scores had already been sliding before the pandemic. On the 2014 MCA, 63% of students grades three through eight were proficient in math and 59% were proficient in reading.
Education Department officials say they think a major state funding increase from the 2023 legislative session, which boosted state funding by more than $2 billion and tied the formula to inflation, as well as other measures like new reading instruction standards and teacher recruitment, will turn around flagging schools.
“We’re working hard to put these new measures into place, and I think it’s going to be the long term measures, many of which involve the large scale and systemic changes, that’s going to positively impact students for years to come,” said Education Commissioner Willie Jett. ”Schools all across the country have faced some unprecedented challenges the last few years, and I just believe we’ve made some progress.”
Jett said testing data is just one measure his department uses to measure school success. While scores have remained at lows reached during the pandemic, education officials said they were encouraged by the decline leveling out, as well as rising consistent attendance rates.
This year, statewide consistent attendance grew to 74.5% from 69.8% the year before. But the rate remains significantly below where it sat before the pandemic.
Consistent attendance means students attending at least 90% of the time. Before the pandemic in 2019, around 85.4% of students were consistently attending school statewide.
Achievement gap
Minnesota still has an achievement gap between students of different ethnicities, even as the state works to address the issue. In past years, white students were about twice as likely to be proficient in math and reading than Black, Hispanic and American Indian students. Results this year only changed slightly, according to the state education department.
Students take the reading and math tests in third through eighth grades and once in high school so state education officials can gauge the success of schools. Science testing happens in fifth and eighth grades and once in high school.
They’re also used as part of a federal education accountability system that’s required under the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.
The test isn’t mandatory. This year nearly 93% of students took the math test and nearly 95% took the reading tests. And in 2020 the state did not have the MCA as the coronavirus pandemic shut down schools.
Other measures of school performance include academic progress, attendance and graduation rates in what’s called the “North Star Accountability System.” The state of Minnesota gives additional aid to schools that do poorly on those metrics.
Check back for updates on this developing story.
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