The 2024 MCAS scores for all public schools in Massachusetts, including Wareham have been released by the state and Wareham shows growth in math and science but remains stagnant in English language arts.

The MCAS test measures the performance of Massachusetts public school students from grades three to eight and grade 10. All students are measured in math and English language arts and grades five, eight and 10 are measured in science as well.

The test results are collected by The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and are put into four categories based on performance: exceeding expectations, meets expectations, partially meets expectations and not meeting expectations.

Similar to 2023's scores, over half of the tested Wareham Public School students scored in the "partially meeting expectations" category across all tested subjects.

Of the seven grade levels tested, four saw slight increases in the percentage of students meeting expectations and exceeding expectations categories for English. However, some grade levels saw dramatic drops in percent of students meeting or passing expectations.

For example, this year, 23% of fourth graders met or exceeded expectations, which is a drop off of 17 percentage points when compared to last year but is even with the scores from 2019.

In 2019, 38% of Wareham students across all tested grade levels met or exceeded expectations in English and this number has been down for Wareham and many other districts across the state. This year, 28% of all tested students in Wareham met or exceeded expectations in English.

When compared to the state in English language arts, Wareham's students' percentage point increase from 2023 to 2024 was higher than the state average improvement in five out of the seven grades in which the test was administered.

In math, most grade levels saw an increase in performance from last year. Most notably, 41% of third graders met or exceeded expectations this year which was an increase of 18 percentage points from last year and a nine point increase from 2019.

This year's results showed 30% of all tested students in Wareham met or exceeded expectations for math, marking it as the first year since the pandemic that this figure surpassed that of 2019. The percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations has increased every year since 2021.

When compared to the state in math, Wareham's growth from 2023 to 2024 equaled or exceeded the state's in five out of the seven grades tested. The most dramatic improvement was evident in third grade where the improvement was by 18 percentage points as compared to three for the state.

For the science test, Wareham saw improvement from the fifth and eighth grade students who had 42% and 30% of students meet or exceed expectations this year, respectively.

For fifth graders, this was an increase of 10 percentage points from last year and an increase of four percentage points from 2019. The eighth graders had an increase of nine percentage points from last year but a drop of one percentage point from 2019. The tenth grade had 21% of students meet or exceed expectations and this was the same last year.

Wareham saw a similar jump in the science scores to the math scores with 35% of fifth and eighth graders meeting or exceeding expectations. This is three percentage points higher than 2019 and it shows an increase of nine percentage points from last year.

When compared to the state in science for fifth and eighth graders, Wareham's percentage point improvement from 2023 to 2024 and from 2019 to 2024 topped the state improvement.

The 10th graders at Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School saw an increase in students meeting or exceeding expectations this year when compared to last year in science. With 55% of 10th graders meeting or exceeding expectations, the grade is a 19 percentage point increase from last year.

The school saw 51% of 10th graders meet or exceed expectations in English, which was a drop off of five percentage points from last year but matched the number in 2019. With 38% of 10th graders meeting or exceeding expectations in math this year, the grade saw a slight drop of three percentage points from last year but a 15 point drop off from 2019.