Results on the 2024 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) indicate that Rochester Public Schools (RPS) has reversed a multi-year decline in the percentage of
students who score at the proficient level or above in math, science, and reading. That trend holds true for both the raw test score data and the scores that the State of Minnesota assigns to schools and school districts in reading and mathematics using the North Star Accountability System methodology.
Rochester Public Schools was not able to administer the MCAs in 2023 due to a ransomware attack that took down most of the school district’s technology systems during that year’s testing window. As a result, the most recent point of comparison for the district’s 2024 MCA results are the tests that students took in the spring of 2022.
According to the raw test score data, the percentage of students in RPS who scored proficient in mathematics grew from 39.8% in 2022 to 41.8% in 2024, an increase of 2 percentage points. The percentage of students who score proficient in science grew from 36.4% in 2022 to 37.6% in 2024, an increase of 1.2 percentage points. The percentage of students who score proficient in reading increased from 49.5% in 2022 to 49.7% in 2024, an increase of 0.2 percentage points.
Each year, the State of Minnesota recalculates the raw test score data from the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments in reading and math using a methodology called the North Star Accountability System. Under that system, students who opted out of or refused to take the test are counted as “not proficient” in the data. Federal law requires Minnesota and all states to use and publicly report data using that methodology so that schools and districts have no incentive to discourage students from taking the test in order to improve their scores. In addition, the North Star Accountability System calculation does not count students who have not been enrolled in a school for at least half of the school year in that school’s proficiency rate. Scores on the MCA science tests are not included in the North Star Accountability System.
As illustrated in the accompanying graph, using the North Star Accountability System methodology, the percentage of students who scored proficient in reading increased from 45.4% in 2022 to 47.7% in 2024, an increase of 2.2 percentage points. The percentage of RPS students who scored proficient in mathematics grew from 35.6% in 2022 to 39.4% in 2024, an increase of 3.8 percentage points.
“These results are from tests that students took at the end of the second year of implementing the RPS Strategic Plan,” said RPS Superintendent Dr. Kent Pekel. “Research suggests that it takes about three years to significantly raise student achievement in an elementary school, six years in a high school, and eight years for an entire school district. Given those timelines, I think we should see these results as an early indicator that Rochester Public Schools is on the right track.”
According to both the raw test score data and the North Star Accountability System calculations, a group of schools in RPS made even larger gains than the district as a whole. Schools that improved their proficiency rates by five percentage points or more between 2022 and 2024 are being identified as Leading Edge Schools. In the months ahead, the RPS Research and Improvement team will examine those improvements to gain insight on practices that can be studied and shared across the district. Those schools are identified below.
Leading Edge Schools 2024
Using the North Star Accountability System methodology, the following schools made improvements in proficiency rates of five percentage points or more:
MCA results for any school in Rochester and for the school district can be found on the Minnesota School Report Card.
“It is encouraging to see that we have reversed a sustained trend of declining proficiency rates in RPS, but one year of improvement doesn’t mean we have established a new and positive trend,” said RPS Director of Research and Improvement Peter Wruck. “In the months ahead, we will work with schools to dig into the data to identify and share the factors that may have contributed to the gains.”