A reading assignment on a chalkboard in a Massachusetts high school. In Massachusetts, the states’ standardized English test scores for third- through eighth-graders fell an additional three percentage points this year and have been decreasing since 2021. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
Rhode Island cloned its standardized testing system for public school students from neighboring Massachusetts — and each year education officials hope to copy the consistently higher scores reported in the Commonwealth.
The latest results show that the Ocean State is continuing to close the gap with math scores rising for the third year in a row, while Massachusetts math scores plateaued in 2024.
True, Rhode Island math scores across grades three through eight only went up half a percentage point in the results from testing conducted last March through May. But that was enough for Gov. Dan McKee to celebrate the release of this year’s Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment (RICAS) scores on Oct. 18.
“My administration is committed to closing the performance gap between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and despite the pandemic, we have been able to narrow the gap over the past three years,” McKee said in a statement accompanying the freshly released RICAS results.
Test scores show R.I. students still recovering to pre-pandemic levels
Since 2018, the gap between RICAS and Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) scores has narrowed by more than 50%, according to the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). The state wants to close the gap between the states by 2030.
But that goal comes as Massachusetts undergoes some serious soul searching on the value of its MCAS. Voters in the Commonwealth will decide next month to approve or reject Ballot Question 2, which seeks to eliminate passing the MCAS as a graduation requirement. Teachers unions have launched a Yes on 2 campaign for the ballot measure, which has also seen support from the state’s Democratic senior senator, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
The MCAS is a form of “high stakes testing,” meaning there are tangible consequences for students’ academic outcomes. Advocates want to see it replaced by alternative assessments to determine high schoolers’ graduation eligibility. Others, like the Boston Globe Editorial Board, have penned defenses of the MCAS and are urging voters to reject Question 2.
Rhode Island does not administer the test to high schoolers like Massachusetts does and relies instead on the PSAT and SAT. The Bay State maintains a clear edge even as its scores have stilled: Just 31% of Rhode Island the elementary and middle school students tested were at grade level in English language arts, compared to 39% in Massachusetts. Just over 30% of students were proficient in math in Rhode Island, whereas Massachusetts students displayed 40% proficiency this year.
In Rhode Island, standardized math scores have now surpassed pre-pandemic levels and risen about 10 percentage points overall since 2021.
‘This is not a secret’
Not everyone agrees the RICAS is the best way to measure the talents of Rhode Island’s students. Progressive Democratic Sen. Sam Bell of Providence took to X last Friday afternoon to criticize the RICAS as “entirely arbitrary” shortly after their release.
Bell, a geologist with a Ph.D. in earth, environmental, and planetary science, said in a phone interview Wednesday that the scores don’t capture real progress or decline over time.
“This is not a secret,” said Bell, “They’re [RICAS] reported like they are an objective measure of proficiency. They’re not designed to be.”
Both the Rhode Island and Massachusetts tests are revised year to year, with some questions removed and others added. The assessments are meant to gauge students’ abilities in the core subjects of English language arts and math via exercises like analyzing short texts and basic algebra. Both multiple choice and written response questions are included.
Victor Morente, a RIDE spokesperson, said the test design remains consistent across years, but does change occasionally, most recently in 2021.
“The actual questions on the test do change,” Morente wrote in an email. “Just like SAT questions in one year are not exactly the same as the SAT questions the next year.”
To account for different questions across years, Morente said, the test uses roughly equivalent questions, a method known as equating, to “reliably compare results across years.” A technical report is typically released after the RICAS scores, and Morente said this year’s report is being prepared and finalized.
The new RICAS scores are the first since a major report on its Massachusetts sibling, “The MCAS as a Graduation Requirement,” published in July by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. A passing MCAS score is used as a high school graduation requirement in the Commonwealth, and the test can help predict long-term outcomes, like eventual earnings as an adult. Students who scored only slightly above a competency threshold are less likely to earn a living wage by age 30, the report found.
But the Annenberg report noted that higher scores on MCAS dating back to 2009 have not been reflected in any upward movement on the federally-run National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), sometimes called “the nation’s report card.
While the NAEP is a low-stakes test, meaning it does not tangibly affect a student’s academic outcomes, the MCAS are high-stakes, meaning they’re tied to a student’s academic outcomes.
“The very large increases in ELA, and the modest gains in math after 2009, were not reflected in NAEP gains, suggesting they arose from scale drift, score inflation, content differences, or other inconsistencies,” the report notes. “There are important concerns about whether MCAS scores are giving students accurate signals about their preparation for college and career.”
A portion of a sample eighth grade math problem from the RICAS test is shown. (Screencap/Rhode Island Department of Education)
English language arts proficiency slides
The latest scores from Rhode Island show just under 31% of students in grades three through eight were proficient in English language arts, a 2 percentage point drop from last year. Just over 30% of students were at grade level in math, an increase of half a percentage point. Still, RICAS scores in math have now surpassed pre-pandemic levels and have risen about 10 percentage points overall since 2021.
The RICAS scores are important because they illuminate “student progress, school performance, and how to improve teaching and learning,” according to a guide for families from the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), who administers the test.
Both the RICAS and MCAS are rooted in Common Core standards.
Changes from year to year on the tests can make comparisons harder, Bell said, and cited the federally-run National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), sometimes called “the nation’s report card,” as an example of long-term trend testing that establishes more reliable data over time.
But the math tests — especially in Rhode Island, a state which has had historically poor math scores — have improved despite the apparent difficulty in the subject matter.
“While the long term trend testing has shown a real decline in American math scores, the Common Core tests, in general, show opposite movement around the country,” Bell said. “One of the signals that we would expect to see if the math test was getting easier, is that we would expect to see that same relative shift happening in Massachusetts, and we do.”
Bell noted he was not against raising proficiency levels or standards, but questioned the sometimes cataclysmic tone applied to the state of education.
“You are seeing an actual serious slide in math scores on the long term-trends test…We’re going backwards instead of forwards, which is a crisis,” Bell said. “But it’s not like everyone who can’t meet proficiency on the RICAS can’t do basic math. Students today are able to do math on a higher level than the average adult in an age cohort who is saying that students today can’t do math.”
Practice tests available on RIDE’s website offer evidence of the high standards for Common Core tests, which in the math portion can include questions on similar triangles, or linear and quadratic equations, subjects typically found in high school math classes.
“If you are going to go out and you are going to go say that students today can’t do basic math because they can’t meet proficiency on Common Core aligned tests, then you have to be able to prove the Pythagorean Theorem right now, or you shouldn’t be able to say that,” Bell said.
Chronically absent students still a concern for officials
RIDE Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green leaned into her continued effort to improve school attendance statewide as one explanation for this year’s lackluster results.
“The data from this year’s RICAS results tell a clear story: If students aren’t in school and if they need support with their mental health, they can’t learn well,” Infante-Green said in a statement released alongside the RICAS. “Chronically absent students show a significant learning gap compared to their peers who attend regularly and we are working proactively to address it. The good news is that students can catch up.”
Chronically absent students — those who miss at least 10% of the school year, or about two days a month — performed worse on all measures statewide. Some of the worst performance gaps were in suburban school districts, where kids who missed a lot of school fared poorly on the RICAS compared to their district peers who had better attendance. Suburban students were 18 percentage points lower in English and 24 percentage points lower in Math.
The RICAS scores were released alongside a battery of other assessments, including the 2024 PSAT and SAT scores for high schoolers as well as the Rhode Island Next Generation Science Assessment. On the PSAT, 21% of students were proficient in English language arts and 16% were proficient in math. On the SAT, 25% were proficient in English language arts and 21% were proficient in math. The science assessments, which were first taken in 2021, rose a little under a percentage point to 31% this year.
The most recent results from the standardized tests known as the Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System (RICAS) were lukewarm compared to recent years, although state officials pointed out that math scores have risen slightly above pre-pandemic levels. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
Overall proficiency numbers on the RICAS dropped lower for certain populations: Only 16.5% of economically disadvantaged students, for example, achieved proficiency in English. Around 5% of both students with disabilities and English-language learners met competency standards.
Participation rates, at least, were great: Around 58,000 students took the English and math RICAS this year, representing about 98% participation from eligible students statewide. Multilingual learners who recently completed English-learning programs also did well, and rose slightly above the statewide numbers: 35% of these students tested proficient in English.
Further contextualizing the numbers are demographic changes in Rhode Island’s student population. According to a RIDE presentation reviewing the RICAS numbers, Rhode Island led the nation in percentage growth for the population of multilingual learners from 2010 to 2020. In that period, some districts in the urban ring — which includes Cranston, East Providence, Johnston, Newport, North Providence, Warwick and West Warwick — and suburbs saw increases of 100% to 400% in their multilingual learner population. The percentage of multilingual learners enrolled in Rhode Island schools is the highest in New England and fifth highest nationwide, according to the RIDE presentation, which used 2020 data from the National Center for Education Studies.
There are also more students with disabilities in Rhode Island, which has the 10th highest percentage of students with disabilities across 50 states and Washington, D.C. The past five years have seen a 2.5% increase in the population, and 19% of Rhode Island students had disabilities in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Profiles for individual districts are available on RIDE’s website. The RICAS testing for 2024 ran March through May.
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