Half the battle with digesting MCAS scores is finding them on the Massachusetts Department of Education website. We’ve gotten that far, but haven’t had a chance yet to dive into the numbers.

The common headline about the standardized test scores is that they’ve fallen in many communities from 2019 to 2021, reflecting the results of trying to learn during the pandemic in remote and hybrid fashion (we’ve embedded the 2019 and 2021 Natick overall stats below, though note numerous cuts of the data can be viewed on the state site). Tests weren’t administered in 2020 due to the pandemic.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reported that 46% of students in grades 3-8 across the state scored “Meeting Expectations” or higher in English language arts in 2021, and 33% did so in math. Both of these represent a drop compared to 2019, when 52% scored at that level in English language arts and 49% did so in math.