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Shining Successes and Work to Be Done in the Cambridge Public Schools

September 24, 2010

Cambridge, MA -- For this city’s innovative and diverse public school system, MCAS 2010 revealed areas of substantial growth in student achievement as well as areas in need of continuing improvement. The district made Adequate Yearly Progress in the aggregate in both English language arts and math, achieving the level of growth required by No Child Left Behind.  The district also achieved a variety of gains at different grade levels for low income, special needs, African American/Black, and Hispanic students, but did not achieve the level of growth required to make Adequate Yearly Progress for all subgroups of students in English language arts or math.

Cambridge Public Schools Superintendent Jeff Young acknowledged the gains as well as the work to be done by the district. “I’m proud of our students and staff, and congratulate our schools on our MCAS successes, particularly in math,” Dr. Young observed. “But we have to keep pushing hard to close our achievement gaps and bring all Cambridge students to the highest levels of performance.  We’ve made progress, but the gaps are persistent and unacceptable to all of us in the Cambridge Public Schools and the Cambridge community—and we have several key strategies in place to attack this problem in new ways this year.”