Stoughton MCAS Scores Boost District to Level 2 Status

By Daniel Libon (Patch Staff)

It’s been a big year for Stoughton in terms of the MCAS exams.

Four of Stoughton’s seven schools this year achieved Level-1 status in the Massachusetts Accountability System, while the district itself climbed from Level-3 to Level-2, according to Stoughton Superintendent Marguerite Rizzi.

The climb, Rizzi said in a statement, was due to the fact that no schools remain in Level-3 status. 

Here are the district-wide results as compared with those of 2013:

ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTS: 52 percent tested proficient and 43 percent tested advanced, up slightly from 48 and 47 percent last year, respectively. Four percent tested in need of improvement (the same as last year) and 1 percent tested failing (the same as last year and down from 5 percent in 2012).

MATH: Twenty-nine percent tested proficient, a drop from 33 percent last year; 51 percent tested advanced, a drop from 56 percent in 2013. Fifteen percent tested in need of improvement (up from 7 percent last year) and 5 percent tested failing (the same as last year).

SCIENCE: This year, 45 percent tested proficient, a drop from 48 percent last year; 39 percent tested advanced, an increase over 33 percent last year. Also, 13 percent tested in need of improvement, a drop from 16 percent in 2013, and 2 percent tested failing (down from 3 percent last year).

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 mandates that every student be proficient in English language arts and math by 2014. In Massachusetts, this proficiency is measured by the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). A school must improve in proficiency each year based on adequate yearly progress (AYP). In Massachusetts, AYP is determined by student performance on various parts of the MCAS.

Rizzi released the following statement in response to the results:

I am proud to announce that for the first time in the history of the Stoughton Schools, 4 of 7 schools have achieved Level 1 status in the Massachusetts State Accountability system. According to the state website, all Massachusetts schools and districts are classified into one of five accountability and assistance levels, with the highest performing in Level 1, and the lowest in Level 5. Districts with a majority of Level 1 schools are among the highest achieving in the Commonwealth.

Each district is classified in the level of its lowest rated school. I am also very proud to announce that the Stoughton district has risen to Level 2, from Level 3, because after three years of planning and hard work, the other schools in our district are now all Level 2, with no schools remaining in Level 3.

Thanks to tremendous dedication and commitment from the administration, teachers, and students at the Gibbons Elementary School, along with their district support team, they have achieved the monumental accomplishment of going from a Level 3 to a Level 1 in just one year. Congratulations to all of them.

Last year we had one school, the South Elementary, enter Level 1 status. This year, with the Hansen Elementary reentering Level 1, and Stoughton High School attaining Level 1 for the first time, we have gone from one Level 1 school in 2013, to four Level 1 schools in the space of one short year.

The West School, which achieved Level 2 status last year, has continued its improvement, and so along with the Middle School and the Dawe Elementary, rounds out our compliment of schools at Level 2, an excellent place to be, the result of constant, steadfast planning and improvement over the last 5 years.

5 Years ago, when I took this job, I told the School Committee that the process of educational change takes 5 to 7 years. It involves vision, expertise, planning, staging, consistency of good educational leadership, and careful budgeting to put the building blocks of a strong system in place. We had to preserve the most important things during the recession, and then gradually replace the things we lost. We had to carefully choose from a list of what we knew would create a world class education for every student over time, based on what we could afford, balanced with what we needed to build, and build on. We can now see, in concrete terms, the very real fruits of that labor. It has worked.

For parents, this achievement demonstrates that the Stoughton Schools are constantly improving, and the staff never rests in their goal to bring the best possible education to every child, all of the time. The investments in small class sizes, small group remediation and enrichment, consistent materials, alignment to the new Mass curriculum frameworks, commitment to all the important elements in

education, including art, music, physical education, middle school electives, writing, technological literacy, and especially, higher order thinking, are working. We will get this information out to colleges and universities so that they are competing for our graduates.

Citizens of Stoughton who don’t have children in the schools- these improvements have meaning for you as well. Better schools mean better property values, and more investment by growing businesses. Kids with strong bright futures are better neighbors. Good schools attract young families who want to live here and become part of a vibrant community in which we all want to live, a destination community where people want to settle and establish their lives and families. We will share this information with realtors, so that they know what a strong selling point our school system is. Stoughton is on the verge of so many major and important changes, and this significant improvement in our school system supports them all. The new library, the high school building, the work of the Master Planning Committee, the work of revitalizing the State Theatre and downtown, are all moving forward with the support of dedicated residents. Together all of these efforts and improvements contribute to a new and reinvigorated Stoughton in both fact and perception.

This remarkable improvement has been achieved through the efforts of our amazing students, teachers, and administrators, in all of our schools. Congratulations to all of them.

Particular credit must go to previous school committees, who have joined with our administration for the past ½ decade in a strong, highly performing, and high functioning governance team that contributed to, and doggedly supported, the vision, the plan, and the budgets to support the plan, over the last 5 school years. These people partnered with us, giving countless hours in study, data analysis, research, thinking, and arguing to arrive at the best plans, in bad economic times to bring educational improvement to the district. In our high performing governance team, trust, honesty, caring, and constant positive outlook and drive were the hallmarks. This does not mean that everyone agrees all the time. Rather, when this positive dynamic and a supportive atmosphere are created, people feel comfortable bringing a variety of different ideas to the table, and as a result of this winning formula, the best ideas emerge, and the best of each person is accessible.

Additional thanks goes to the Finance Committee, its sub-committee on Education, and the Stoughton Town meeting members, who believed in us, and partnered with us to implement the vision we presented and the plans to support it. Thank you for understanding and supporting the budgets we have brought you over the years. All of you have also contributed to this success.

As excited as we are by this wonderful news, we will never lose sight of the fact that there is still much work to do. We have already started looking closely at the data, targeting areas to approach next. As things improve we are able to focus with even more vigor on the areas that still need work. We will build on our strengths and bring all of our resources to bear in order to eliminate weaknesses we still have. We will never rest until each child, each day, receives the finest educational experience that it is possible to have, in every grade, in every subject.