School-By-School MCAS Exam Results Released

WORCESTER (CBS) - The state released school-by-school results from the Spring 2012 MCAS exams Wednesday.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Mark Katic reports

Overall, there was progress but some schools are still not meeting standards.

Read: MCAS Performance Results

Secretary of Education Paul Reville and Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester announced the results at the Columbus Park Preparatory Academy in Worcester where students gathered in the gym to hear the good news - their MCAS scores were among the best in the state.

67 percent of Columbus Park students were "advanced" or "proficient" in English, while 58 percent reached those levels in Math.

This year marks a new start for MCAS. The state is no longer using the standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Massachusetts was granted a waiver from NCLB back in February.

No Child Left Behind requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014.

"This is the first year where we've based our report cards on this new system, the five levels, so I view this as kind of a starting point, a baseline," Chester told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.

"We're asking every school and every district in the Commonwealth over the next six years to cut in half the number of students who are not yet on grade level."

The state's five-level accountability system, established in 2010, classifies schools into five levels:

• Level 1: Meeting gap narrowing goals

• Level 2: Not meeting gap narrowing goals

• Level 3: Among lowest performing 20% of schools

• Level 4: Among lowest achieving and least improving schools

• Level 5: Chronically underperforming schools

In Worcester, only 15 of 43 schools had 50 percent of students at the "advanced" or "proficient" levels in Math and English was slightly better.

In Boston, a majority of schools did not have 50 percent of students at the "proficient" or "advanced" levels, although most Boston high schools met that standard.

WBZ's Mark Katic contributed to this report

You can follow him on Twitter @MarkKWBZ