Brewster MCAS Scores On The Upswing

BREWSTER – Brewster’s MCAS scores are trending upward after flagging during COVID-inspired remote and hybrid learning.

Educational achievement lagged in general with school shutdowns and restrictions, but the number of students meeting or exceeding expectations rose 8 to 10 percent over the last year. The base achievement scores also rose.

Eddy School principal Steven Guditus presented the most recent Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests, used to measure academic progress, to the Brewster School Committee last Thursday.

The student growth profile in the MCAS scores are not direct measures of achievement, he said.

“We take a look at a student who earns a certain score on the MCAS. Every student in that grade in that year who earned — we chose 500 in that example — every student in the fourth grade who earned a 500 in the math MCAS in 2022 across the whole state, they would take that group of students and compare them to each other the next year,” Guditus explained. The same cohort of students is measured against similar students from around the state and ranked into percentiles.

“So when we take a look at Eddy’s growth percentiles we see in fourth grade (English Language Arts) overall the growth percentile was 47 percent. So our fourth graders outperformed 47 percent of their peers,” Guditus explained. “For math it was 49 percent. For fifth grade it was the 52nd percentile for ELA and 51 percent for math. Add that all up it’s the 50th percentile which according to the state is typical of average growth. So I’m very proud of the work our teachers did and our students to achieve the typical growth we’re looking for in a year’s time.”

Looking at other schools in the region, Orleans scored 61 percent in ELA and 71 percent in math for fourth and fifth grades. Truro was at 37 percent for ELA and 41 percent for math, Harwich at 46 percent for ELA and 51 percent for math, Chatham at 44 percent and 47 percent Eastham at 50 percent and 48 percent, Wellfleet at 65 percent and 59 percent and the Dennis Yarmouth district at 36 percent and 33 percent.

“We’re right in there with most of our Nauset peers in terms of our growth percentiles and outperforming slightly our Chatham, Harwich and DY peers,” Guditus said.

He noted because of its size the Eddy School can pivot instructional models quickly to address perceived needs. The district as a whole will be moving to determine the ELA curriculum across all its schools.

MCAS also measures achievement in English, science and technology and math, grading them as exceeding expectations, meeting expectations, partially meeting expectations and not meeting expectations.

“COVID across the state took achievement and knocked it down several pegs,” Guditus noted. “So when we look at Eddy compared to the state numbers each one of them in those categories (ELA and Math) were outperforming the state.”

Exceeding expectations is a score of 530 to 560, meeting expectations a score of 500 to 529, partially meeting 470 to 499 and not meeting expectations 440 to 469. Eddy’s achievement score for ELA was 497, the district average was 497 and statewide the score was 494. In math Eddy had a score of 498 versus. a state score of 484. In science and technology a 502 score versus a state score of 494.

“When we take a look at every score for every student and we take the mean we see Orleans really knocked it out of the park with a 506,” Guditus noted adding the Wellfleet (499) and Eastham (502) were closely grouped with Brewster with Chatham (498) and Harwich (499) just behind.

Guditus pointed out that last year 38 percent of Brewster students were meeting or exceeding expectations in ELA and this year that number is 46 percent, an eight percent increase. In math scores there was an increase of 10 percent from 39 percent to 49 percent.

“So we are certainly headed in the right direction,” he said. “Across the state the gain was 2 and 3 percent. There are still gaps in skill sets because of the pandemic but we are right there.”

Last year the average of English, math and science scores for Brewster was 496.3; this year it was 499.

The Eddy School has a current enrollment of 207 students in grades three, four and five. Stony Brook has 234 students in kindergarten through second grade.