Needham Shows MCAS Improvement, Rivals Pre-pandemic Scores

October 1, 2025
• The MCAS scores, published Monday, reveal Needham Public Schools students are making strides.

While scores across the state continue to fall below pre-pandemic results — a benchmark many districts have set — Needham students showed improvement in certain areas since 2019, particularly on the math exam.

Needham elementary and middle school students outperformed their pre-pandemic counterparts on the math MCAS this year. Needham grades 3-6 scored higher this year compared with 2019 results, though grades 7, 8 and 10 still slightly lag behind.

In 2019, 85% of Needham seventh graders met or exceeded expectations on math, but 74% did so last spring, as well as in 2024. At least 80% of the district’s eighth and tenth graders passed this year’s math MCAS, though they also still trail pre-pandemic results by a few percentage points.

There exists a wide gap between current scores and 2019 scores at the state level. While nearly 50% of the state’s elementary and middle school students passed their math MCAS in 2019, 41% passed this year. For Massachusetts 10th graders, the divide is more stark: 59% in 2019 vs. 45% this year.

However, voters eliminated the MCAS high school graduation requirement, meaning 10th graders were not necessarily obligated to perform well. DESE Chief Officer for Data, Assessment and Accountability Rob Curtin told reporters that more 10th graders left answers blank or didn’t provide relevant answers to questions, indicating “an impact of motivation,” he said.

All but one grade level in Needham performed better on their English MCAS compared with last year’s scores, the most dramatic rise being fourth grade — last year, 57% of the district’s fourth graders met or exceeded expectations on the exam, but this year, 69% did so.

Even eighth graders, who overall received slightly lower marks this year, still performed markedly better than their peers across the state, with 78% passing English compared with just 44% of all Massachusetts students. Last year, 80% of Needham eighth graders passed their English MCAS.

In science, Needham grades five and eight demonstrated a 31-point lead over the state average, with 72% passing versus just 42% of the state. Fifth graders showed a 6% improvement over 2024’s scores, rising from 69% to 75%. In 2019, fifth graders scored 65% on the exam.

Tenth graders, who did not take a science exam until 2022, dropped from last year’s results. Back in 2022, 79% of Needham 10th graders met or exceeded expectations, but that fell to 64% in 2023. While showing improvement in 2024, with 77% passing, 72% passed last spring.

New to last spring’s exam was a civics exam, taken only by eighth graders. Sixty-nine percent of them met or exceeded expectations.

Interact with the chart below to further explore Needham’s scores over the last six years. DESE also offers interactive charts that allows sorting by student group and individual school.