More Cambridge Public School students are meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations compared to last year, even as the statewide trend moved in the opposite direction.
Data from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) showed 58% of Cambridge students in the third to eighth grades met or exceeded grade-level expectations in math, while 60% of them met or exceeded grade-level expectations in English Language Arts. That’s a two percentage point increase in both categories compared to last year.
Racial achievement gaps, however, widened this year. The gap in ELA achievement separating the percent of White and Black students meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations in grades 3-8 rose one point to 50 percent, while for math achievement the gap increased four points, to 53 percent.
Behind the gap was an increase of three percentage points for White students in both subjects. The percentage of Black students meeting or exceeding expectations dropped by one percentage point in math, but increased by two percentage points in ELA since last year. The percentage of Hispanic or Latino students meeting expectations in those subjects stayed the same year over year.
Superintendent David Murphy said in a statement that “While we celebrate and recognize the hard work of educators, students, and families in this continued progress, we must continue to focus on the persistent opportunity gaps among demographics.”
The statement noted that 3rd through 8th grade math and English scores met or exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
While a November 2024 ballot motion removed passing the MCAS as a graduation requirement, the tests are still used to track school and student performance. The decision begged questions about how removing the requirement would impact test scores.
Varied achievement levels
Achievement is also not uniform across the district’s 17 schools.
The Maria L. Baldwin School, Rindge Avenue Upper School and the Amigos School were the highest scoring schools this year.
Achievement for third to eighth graders in English Language Arts was the highest at the Maria L. Baldwin School, where 79% met or exceeded grade-level expectations, followed by Rindge Avenue Upper School, at 72%, and the Amigos School at 70%. (While the figures include data from grades 3-8, the Baldwin School only serves students until the fifth grade and Rindge Ave begins its instruction at grade six).
The school with the lowest number in English was Fletcher Maynard Academy (FMA), where 39% of students met or exceeded ELA expectations. Haggerty School had the next lowest score at 46%, with Graham and Parks, King Open, and Cambridge Street Upper School (CSUS) all at 50%.
In math achievement, the Baldwin School saw 83% of students meet or exceed grade-level expectations, followed by Rindge Ave at 70% and the Amigos School at 68%. On the lower end, FMA and CSUS tied at 44%.
Those patterns are relatively consistent with previous years, when FMA and CSUS were among the lower scoring schools.
The Kennedy-Longfellow School was the lowest performing school in the district up until its closure in 2025, which was partially related to its outcome data.
Amigos has highest growth
Students at the Amigos School also had the highest Average Student Growth Percentile of any school this year, a measurement of progress found by comparing student test score changes to other students that started with similar scores.
As one of the highest performing schools in the district, and the only K-8 school in Cambridge, the Amigos School tends to be highly sought after in the school choice lottery but has capacity constraints in its current building. The district is considering moving the school to the 158 Spring Street building, which formerly housed the Kennedy-Longfellow school, and is both larger and more modern than the Amigos building.
Separately, basic literacy has been an ongoing discussion by the School Committee, which considered holding back third graders not reading at grade-level. The committee voted against that motion in March.
Ten percent of Cambridge third graders were not meeting reading expectations last year. The MCAS data showed that number rose to 11% this year, continuing a steady increase in recent years. Statewide, that number stayed at 19% both last year and this year.
For 10th grade English Language Arts, numbers slipped dramatically across the state. In Cambridge, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations went up by one point from 56% to 57%, but so did the percentage of students not meeting expectations. (This is because of a drop in the percentage of students that partially met expectations.)
The district said it will be sharing information about how families can access their student’s data by the end of the week.
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