The Massachusetts Department of Education released the results of the 10th-grade science MCAS tests taken last spring, and Harvard students once again came out on top.
The Boston Globe website ranks school districts according to how many students passed the tests. Under these rankings, Harvard and four other districts tied for first place in physics, while Harvard and 15 other towns were ranked tops in chemistry. For biology, the 24 students taking that test in Hatfield came out on top, with none failing the test. Harvard and three other districts were ranked second.
Students had a choice of which science test to take: 92 Harvard students took the biology test, 91 took the physics test, and 17 took the chemistry test. Of those, only one student received a failing score, in biology. None failed in physics or chemistry. Also, no Harvard pupils scored in the “needs improvement” category in chemistry, although 5 percent of test-takers did fall into that category on the physics test, along with 12 percent of the biology test-takers.
Scores for the vast majority of Harvard students fell in the top two categories, “advanced” or “proficient.” Once again, the chemistry scores were highest, with 65 percent rated as “advanced,” and 35 percent as “proficient.” In physics, 48 percent of students taking the test were rated as “advanced,” and 46 percent as “proficient.” Among the Harvard students taking the biology test, however, only 26 percent received a score of “advanced,” while 61 percent were ranked as “proficient.”
A fourth 10th-grade science MCAS test was offered, in technology/engineering, but no students in Harvard took that test.
The statewide results of the high school science tests were much more disappointing. Beginning with this year’s 10th-graders, students will have to pass one of the four science tests to graduate from high school. More than one quarter of the Massachusetts students taking the tests last spring received a failing score. The failure rates varied from 22 percent for physics, to 39 percent in chemistry, with 24 percent failing the biology or technology/engineering tests. Some inner-city schools had failure rates of more than 90 percent. Statewide, the percentage of students scoring in the “advanced” categories was much smaller than that in the “failing” category, ranging from 2 percent in technology/engineering, to 14 percent in physics.
