ARLINGTON — More than five years after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools for months, Massachusetts students continue to lag far below prepandemic levels on state tests, according to MCAS scores released Monday.
The results show very little progress from 2024 to 2025, with notable declines among high school students. The scores raise questions about whether the state is doing enough to catch students up to their prepandemic peers, and what the long-term effect of declining performance could be on the students’ readiness for college and the job market and the state’s economy.
Leaders continue to emphasize Massachusetts’ top ranking on tests known as the "Nation’s Report Card,” but the state’s edge appears to be slipping.
“The distinction we’ve earned over the last several decades of leading the nation is a characteristic that’s becoming unraveled,” said Edward Lambert, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. “Other states are recovering from the pandemic, and we don’t seem to be at all.”
The new test scores are the first data released reflecting Massachusetts students’ performance in the 2024-25 school year. MCAS results in English and high school math reported Monday are not just below 2019 levels. The scores are lower even than in 2021, when many students were still learning from home or had only recently returned to the classroom. The math passing rate for grades 3 to 8, meanwhile, has been stuck for three years at 8 percentage points below the 2019 level.
Students do not appear to be on pace to recover in either math or English. Even third-graders, many of whom weren’t in school when the pandemic arrived, scored behind prepandemic peers on their first state tests last spring.
“We’ve seen improvement over last year in some areas,” Education Commissioner Pedro Martinez said at an online news briefing Monday. “But, and this is really important for us to really note, we have no student group statewide that’s at prepandemic levels of achievement.”
Martinez and other state leaders emphasized initiatives aimed at turning scores around, including funding for research-based reading instruction, such as phonics, and a campaign to reduce chronic absenteeism. Neither, however, has done much to raise achievement.
There were, as usual, large achievement gaps by race and other demographics. But unlike in many other states, all groups remained below prepandemic levels, said Martinez, who became the state’s K-12 education commissioner over the summer.
Still, he called the results “sobering, but not insurmountable,” and noted that dozens of Massachusetts districts are at prepandemic levels in grades 3 to 8 in either math or English. Thirteen matched prepandemic levels in both subjects.
After the news briefing, Martinez and state Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler visited Arlington’s Ottoson Middle School to discuss the exams. Arlington, with about 6,000 students, was the state’s largest district to fully bounce back in math and English performance since the height of the pandemic.
“I am optimistic that we’re going to be able to overcome this,” Martinez told reporters.
Overall, about 42 percent of Massachusetts students met expectations on the tests last spring; before the pandemic, half did. About 18 percent in 2025 failed the tests, compared with about 11 percent prepandemic.
Results in many individual school districts were similarly dismal.
In the state’s largest districts, Boston, Springfield, and Worcester, all made modest progress in grades 3-8 but lost further ground in Grade 10. In a statement, Boston Superintendent Mary Skipper acknowledged high school math and English as “areas for continued focus” but emphasized progress in other areas such as chronic absenteeism.
“These results indicate that our targeted investments and support are yielding positive outcomes across our schools, and we remain committed to building on this momentum,” Skipper said.
Megan Webb, principal of Wakefield’s Galvin Middle School, joined the state leaders in Arlington and said the road back from the pandemic has been long, “with progress often slower than we would like.”
“This fall, we’ve seen powerful signs of progress,” she said. “Teachers across our building have noted that students began the year more curious, more willing to extend their thinking, and more ready to take academic risks than at any point in the last five years.”
But such progress was unfortunately rare. The new test scores continue a dismal trend shown in earlier data, including prior years’ MCAS results and the 2024 Nation’s Report Card tests, which showed students in Massachusetts and nationwide continuing to lose ground.
More than 450,000 students took the math, English, and science tests. Last spring’s exams also included a new eighth-grade civics test. About 39 percent of students passed the new assessment, which covered topics such as the philosophical basis of the US political system and the structure of Massachusetts state government.
The new MCAS test came seven years after the state’s Education Department established a requirement that all 8th-graders must take a year-long civics class.
Last spring’s 10th-graders were the first in two decades to take the MCAS without high stakes. Massachusetts voters opted last fall to abolish the exam’s use as a high school graduation requirement.
The results, with significantly more high school students scoring at the lowest level, suggest some took the test less seriously without the graduation incentive, state data chief Rob Curtin said. The scores could also reflect teachers putting less emphasis on preparing for the tests.
Early reading scores showed limited signs that Governor Maura Healey’s investments in evidence-based reading instruction had taken hold so far. Third-grade students made no progress from 2024, with 42 percent meeting expectations on the reading test, compared to 56 percent prepandemic.
Across demographics, most groups made modest progress in grade 3-8 English but declined significantly in Grade 10 English. Math scores were more stable. But with preexisting disparities and marginalized students suffering the worst pandemic setback, immense achievement gaps remain. About one-quarter to one-third of Black students, for example, met expectations on each test, compared to about half of white students.
The statewide rate of chronic absenteeism, or missing 18 days of school, was 18.8 percent last year, down about a point from 2023-24 but still elevated from the 13 percent rate prepandemic. Attendance problems surged coming out of the pandemic, with more than one-quarter of students missing that much school in 2021-22.
“The road back from the pandemic is not a short one,” Tutwiler said at the early media briefing.
Both charter schools and traditional public schools remain below 2019 levels, but declines are particularly severe for the charter sector. About 44 percent of high school charter students met expectations on the math exam — down nearly 20 points from 2019, when they outperformed the state as a whole.
The state on Monday released new accountability determinations for schools and districts, taking into account MCAS data and other indicators and listed 61 schools as “Schools of Recognition,” based on growth or achievement. That group included some with high poverty rates such as Boston’s New Mission High School and Chelsea’s Edgar F. Hooks Elementary.
The state also identified 29 districts and 280 schools as needing assistance or intervention. Although the MCAS is no longer a graduation requirement, it remains central to the state’s accountability system. Schools and districts that perform poorly, in whole or among particular subgroups, can face state intervention or even a state takeover.
Christopher Huffaker can be reached at christopher.huffaker@globe.com. Follow him @huffakingit. John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com or on Signal at john_hilliard.70. Follow him on Bluesky at iamjohnhilliard.bsky.social. Marcela Rodrigues can be reached at marcela.rodrigues@globe.com.