After four years of piloting a new math curriculum, one year of piloting literacy curricula and almost five years since the beginning of the pandemic, district educators and administrators were eager to see how students have fared. Three weeks ago they heard: By MCAS assessment data, Needham Public Schools ranked number one in the Commonwealth. Needham has always been high in the top 20 performing districts in the state, but this is the first time it tops the list.
Assistant Superintendent for Instruction and Innovation Carmen Williams presented the data at the Oct. 21 School Committee meeting.
“This report belongs to everyone in our community,” she began, thanking students, parents, educators and district leaders. “I’m truly honored to share this year’s report.”
The MCAS evaluation does not simply reflect average scores. It is plugged into a formula that also looks at factors such as growth compared to other districts, growth compared to previous years, achievement and growth of several subgroups, chronic absenteeism and graduation rates. All aspects are given a percentage and ranked, and the output is collated in what the Massachusetts department of secondary education calls an Accountability Report. Each year, DESE assigns every district a score to inform how they are progressing toward targets and standards.
Because the state scores dropped this year and Needham maintained or increased performance, it landed in first place with a score of 93%, the highest score the district has received since the Accountability Report was implemented in 2018.
Williams attributes the recent ranking to the equity work to which the district has been committed. “We’re already high performing,” she told the Observer. “To move our high performers higher is hard because there is a ceiling. But moving our low performers higher is how the entire organization has been able to achieve this status.”
Some of the more notable statistics when the Accountability formula was applied were the 6% growth in elementary ELA scores, 6% growth for black students K-12, the 12% growth for high-needs students at the high school and the jump from 24% to 92% for high-needs student performance at High Rock, which earned it a DESE School of Recognition award. Also significant were the result of students who entered Kindergarten in 2019, just months before the start of the pandemic. “We were definitely worried about learning loss for that cohort of students,” said Williams. “Last year, those students were in fifth grade and are now performing at the same level as their peers.”
And the district has more work to do, she said. “We don’t want to get hung up that Needham is ranked number one; we do want to focus on we are the best version of ourselves. We are beating ourselves at the game of growth and performance. That’s what’s most exciting.”
Areas of focus for Williams include lowering rates of chronic absenteeism and closing opportunity gaps for the most marginalized groups such as low-income students, English-language learners, and special education students.
“Unless every group is performing similarly to their peers as a whole, we’re still going to focus on this data and do everything we can to close opportunity and achievement gaps for those students,” she said. “There is not a monolithic narrative as to why students within each group may or may not be performing. That’s why we really value our teachers making connections and deep relationships with students because we really want to use not only their academic data but their identities and whatever else they bring with them to school as rich content for their learning.”
The goal, as Superintendent Dan Gutekanst stated before the start of the presentation, is to make sure all student needs are met and they are growing. “The MCAS report to me is an annual report that’s important. It’s not the only story about the Needham Public Schools, but it is a key part of our story.”
Gutekanst told the Observer that he was pleased with the news, but not surprised. “We’ve been able to make incremental positive inroads in helping all of our students,” he said. “We have been intentional both with our strategic plan and our use of data, having teachers work in collaborative teams, having administrators support them to move the needle on learning. It goes beyond MCAS.”
Williams echoed Gutekanst, saying the MCAS is one of many tools used to inform instruction and improve how Needham educators can best help students learn and grow. She said continuing to focus on making learning accessible to all learners and enabling them to grow is the focus.
‘IT WASN’T ONE PARTICULAR THING’
When Williams asked High Rock Principal Jessica Downey what she thought contributed to the school’s 68% growth in performance for high-need students, she said she had no idea.
“I say that a little tongue in cheek because I think that it wasn’t one particular thing. We program for students and we address the needs of the students that are in front of us while also working on our systems and our structures to be more robust and responsive to those needs.
“We did that because we did right by kids and said how can we make this experience come to life for kids and how can we get kids more engaged and how can teachers be more aligned and collaborative. We were doing the work every member of Needham Public Schools is doing every day, it just all aligned for us to be able to demonstrate this today.”
COLLABORATION IS KEY
A common thread across the report and the personal stories was collaboration. When educators and leaders work together, students win. Last year, Kathleen Hubbard, K-5 math curriculum coordinator, wrote a grant to obtain materials and support professional development for the district’s ongoing implementation of Illustrative Math. The grant, given to districts using what the state considers high-quality instructional materials, focused on working with coaches and enabling classroom teachers in each elementary school to do “learning walks.”
“To get teachers to go into other classrooms and see what’s happening and implement it themselves and collaborate, that was new last year,” said Hubbard.
Understanding what students access the curriculum, what’s working well in a classroom and what different approaches teachers are using to enable that was the focus of these “walks.” This approach also offered opportunities to collaborate and help find better approaches for students who don’t participate or access the curriculum.
“I’m glad to see the impact on students, and I know we’re not done,” Hubbard said. “There’s always more to do, and it’s about continuous improvement.”
“DESE was so impressed with our work they wanted to make a video,” said Williams. The video highlights the value of teacher collaboration and support in implementing curriculum.
‘RAISE ALL BOATS’
“There are 302 school districts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Needham is number one. Where are the balloons? Where are the streamers? The confetti?” said School Committee member Matt Spengler, who said the tendency is often to underplay good news. He said he saw the DESE presentation to the state Board of Education. “It’s rough across the Commonwealth. It’s the exact opposite here. That’s pretty remarkable.”
School Committee Chair Michael O’Brien attributed a lot of the success to the equity and inclusion work the district has done in recent years. “The district has made incredible progress in our diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and fully integrating it in the curriculum,” he told the Observer. “We should be proud of the efforts we’ve made to make all students feel heard and valued.”
“We decided many years ago we wanted to raise all boats,” said Gutekanst. “When everyone is achieving at a high level it’s good for all students, the community and our nation’s future.”
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