For three years, the finest school system in America has faltered under Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA). Now, as she gears up for reelection, Healey will be reciting a familiar litany of misleading statistics and feel-good buzzwords about her education “successes.”
At the heart of her claims to education-policy glory is an oft-repeated stat: “Massachusetts schools, for the first time in eight years, are now ranked Number One.” One glance at the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress and Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System testing data reveals how deceptive this is. Massachusetts is not “number one” because its scores improved — they got worse, much worse — but because nearly everyone else was falling, too. The state’s once-commanding lead has all but evaporated: in 2013, only five states sat within 10 points of Massachusetts in eighth-grade math, about a year’s worth of learning. By 2024, 24 states did.
Keeping with this example, the eighth-grade math scores on the NAEP, the so-called “nation’s report card,” that ranked the state first in the nation in 2024, would have landed it 30th in 2013. The state’s own test, the MCAS, is grimmer still: third-grade reading proficiency fell from 56% before the pandemic to 42%, where it has stubbornly remained for two straight years…