Minnesota school test scores stabilize but COVID’s effects linger

Minnesota’s K-12 public school math and reading scores remain largely unchanged since the COVID-19-era drop, according to newly released data from the state Education Department. Student performance stabilized but still came in below levels prior to the pandemic.

Overall, statewide reading scores this year in the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments showed 49.9 percent of students meeting or beating the state’s proficiency-level grade standard, the same mark as in 2023.

Math was a similar story, with 45.5 percent of students tested meeting the standard this year, the same as last.

MCA performance remained flat in two closely watched categories — third grade reading and eighth grade math.

The percentage of third graders considered proficient in reading came in at 46.5 percent, down slightly from 2023 and significantly lower than 54.6 percent in 2019, the year before COVID.

Forty-one percent of eighth graders were counted as math proficient this year, up slightly from about 40 percent the prior three years and down significantly from 55 percent in 2019.

Results for student groups by race and ethnicity changed only slightly between 2023 and 2024, the department added.

State education officials noted that school attendance rates did improve — about 75 percent of students were attending school consistently in 2023, up from 70 percent the prior year. Student attendance and achievement are strongly linked, and attendance rates took a big hit during the pandemic.

Officials noted that lawmakers significantly increased K-12 spending over the past year or so and said the impact of that spending would be seen in coming years.

“Across the board, attendance rates are up and test scores are holding steady," Minnesota Education Commissioner Willie Jett told reporters in a Thursday morning call.

He expressed hope Minnesota’s decision last year to mandate phonics and decoding instruction from kindergarten through third grade would improve reading scores. “It’s going to be a long-term systemic change and we’re starting to implement it now,” Jett said. “We see great promise.”

‘What are we really measuring?’

For students, the pandemic era was a whirlwind of changes in virtual learning, test taking and social-emotional challenges that hurt attendance and test scores even as they returned to the classroom.

Given that turmoil, the fact that scores appeared to have leveled out after years of decline “was actually really a surprise for me,” said Julio Caesar, executive director of research and assessment for the Bloomington Public Schools.

Seeing scores stabilize “actually made me feel a little bit better that we are getting into swinging things,” he said. “We are getting students back into classrooms.”

The MCA tests are very low-stakes for students, which can often lead to lower scores. Families can also opt out. Overall, in 2024, 93 percent of students participated in math tests and 95 percent participated in reading tests, state officials said.

That’s an improvement from the COVID era, but Caesar noted the participation rates are much lower in certain grades, especially in high school. Only 84 percent of 10th grade students sat for the MCA reading test; 73 percent of 11th grade students took the math exam, he said.

In his research, he found that white students and those with higher grade point averages were more likely to opt out of the test. Lack of buy-in was one of the major reasons students opted out, especially at the high school level.

“Teachers and administrators do not see the test as something that is really reflective of what is happening at the schools, and that has had major repercussions because we, at the state level, we use this as an accountability system,” he said. “But if teachers and administrators do not buy into the test (and) students are not buying into the test, what are we really measuring?”

Caution around conclusions

Students take statewide reading and math MCAs annually in grades three through eight, plus grade 10 for reading and grade 11 for math. 

Science assessments are administered in grades five and eight, and once in high school. Of those students who took science assessments this year, 40 percent met proficiency standards for their grade. 

Minnesota schools have long struggled with some of the worst disparities in the country between white students and students of color. This year’s test results show that those achievement gaps remain. Gaps can also be found in the results of students from lower-income and higher-income households. 

Officials have worried especially about the mental health of children during and after the pandemic. Nearly a third of Minnesota students responding to the 2022 Minnesota Student Survey acknowledged they were struggling with long-term mental health problems, higher than at any other time in the history of the survey, which began in 1989.

States around the country have reported COVID-driven drops similar to what’s been seen in Minnesota. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress — often called the nation’s report card — have shown plunging performance on math and reading.

Minnesota students scored higher than students in other states in math and slightly higher in reading in the most recent NAEP exams. The state also tracks graduation rates, which have rebounded to pre-pandemic highs. 

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