Duluth K-12 test scores still below pre-COVID levels – Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH — Some Duluth Public Schools students’ standardized test scores rebounded last year but are still a few notches below pre-pandemic levels.

Minnesota Department of Education officials on Thursday published a fresh round of testing data that indicates about half of the district’s students who took the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment science test last spring were “proficient” in that subject for their grade level. About 56.59% of students earned the same designation in reading, and 46% were deemed proficient in math.

That science score is slightly below last year’s mark of 51.59%; the reading score is slightly higher than last year’s 56.36%; and the math score is marginally better than the 45.4% figure recorded around this time last year.

Still, districtwide scores in all three subjects are sometimes dramatically lower than comparable marks set by student test-takers at the end of the 2019 school year — the last unhampered by the outbreak of COVID-19. State officials canceled spring 2020 MCA testing amid the first wave of the virus.

“I think it’s important for this type of data to create a sense of urgency for us,” Superintendent John Magas told reporters Thursday at Ordean East Middle School. “We’re not happy about the results we have, and I think it’s important for us to work hard to try and improve. But this gives us a picture of part of our current reality.”

It’s a similar story across Minnesota as a whole, where students’ math scores were 0.8% higher this year than last year and 1.9% lower than last year in reading. They’ve fallen considerably since 2019.

“During the pandemic, there has been quite a bit of unfinished learning,” Magas said. “Even prior to the pandemic, we also had schools that were identified for challenges in academic performance. We have a lot of things underway that we have moving forward to close those gaps, but many of the gaps with historically underserved students have continued and, in some cases, been widened by the pandemic.”

The assessment results reinforce what state education officials already know, Heather Mueller, Minnesota’s education commissioner, said Thursday.

“Our students, families, school communities and educators need us to continue to meet this moment,” she said.

With those scores in hand, state education officials designated 371 schools and 15 school districts for further academic support via the “Collaborative Minnesota Partnerships to Advance Student Success” program, which is often shortened to “COMPASS.”

Six of those schools are in the Duluth district: Lowell, Laura MacArthur, Myers-Wilkins and Piedmont elementary schools, plus the Duluth Area Learning Center and Academic Excellence Online.

Those six schools are now set to get help from the state’s “regional centers of…