Students exceed state average in many categories

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

Students across the state of Minnesota have been taking the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, better known as MCAs, for decades as the state collects data on student learning and continues to update and evolve educational standards.

While schools across the nation are still working to recover from the educational slump that the COVID-19 pandemic caused in 2020 and following years, New York Mills students are trending higher in MCA scores than surrounding schools and have returned to pre-Covid levels in many instances.

The MCAs include a reading test for grades 3-8 as well as high school, a math test for grades 10-11, and a science test for grades 5-8 as well as high school. The science test is totally new this year and consequently, past science MCA scores have been cleared from the Department of Education’s online reports.

“They changed the test, there are new standards, but even across the state, I don’t think anybody has ever done that well in the state of Minnesota on the science test,” said high school Principal, Michelle Young. “I think there’s a disconnect somewhere—there has been with that test—so they’re trying to get that as a state lined up with schools.”

Despite many schools across the state, NY Mills included, achieving a low score on the science test, local school districts scored slightly higher than the statewide average of 26.2 percent proficiency. NY Mills achieved a score of 27.8 percent proficient, just above the state average.

Judith Brockway, elementary principal, mentioned that science scores in the elementary school, though historically high, took a significant dip this year as did many school districts across the state, due to a new test with new standards being implemented.

“The teachers are teaching to the standards, which are what the MCAs test,” said Young. “So aligning those standards—you don’t want to teach to the test—but if you’re teaching the standards, that’s what they are testing and that’s what the expectations are of the state.”

“One of the difficulties of that is that the curriculums that are out there are not specifically set up for Minnesota state standards,” said Brockway. “We don’t have our own set of curriculum for Minnesota, if we did it might make things a lot easier, but we give our teachers autonomy to look through samplings of curriculum and find the one that they feel best meets the standards and best meets the needs of our kids.”

Reading scores across the state are nearly double in proficiency to science with a state average of 49.6 percent of students tested being proficient. NY Mills scored 57.1 percent proficient in reading in 2025, an increase of six percent from 2023. One legislative update since that time has been the READ Act, which was implemented in order to promote academic development.

“The READ Act is specific to Minnesota, we are the only state which has this,” said Brockway. “First you start in pre-Kindergarten through sixth grade and high school special education, then you work your way into the high school. It’s a focus on getting back to phonics-based instruction and we were fortunate that our school board is willing to give us five staff development days throughout the school year to let our teachers work on those modules.

“That’s been ongoing since last year, so we’ll finish Phase I at the end of this year,” she continued. “Then we’ll go into Phase II next year in the high school. The READ Act is one of those things where they’re building the airplane as they’re flying it, so we don’t know what that’s going to look like for the high school, but we think the time demand for it isn’t going to be as great.”

Finally, in mathematics, NY Mills students scored at 63.1 percent proficiency in the MCA tests, nearly 18 percent higher than the statewide average of 45.2 percent. Administration credits the hard work of the math faculty for their favorable results in the past few years. With nearly a third of all students statewide not meeting math standards in 2025, NY Mills only had 18.6 percent of students taking the math MCA who did not meet the standards last year.

“They’re talking about a Math Act as well,” said Brockway. “So we’re constantly juggling—we have to go along with what the Minnesota Department of Education is telling us to do and then on the other hand, finding curriculum that matches the standards and our teachers have to then go through that and figure out where each standard is taught and where they need to supplement.

“It’s tough on the teachers because there is no one perfect program,” she continued. “They have to do a lot of the supplementing on their own and figuring that all out. We’re very fortunate to have phenomenal teachers here. Would we like to see higher scores? Yes—we’re in the 50s and 60s, but we are above the state average.”

Though there are many factors that go into how students perform on MCA tests each year, one of the largest factors of growth that both principals credit is the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) programming which has been heavily implemented into the elementary school and continues to expand in the high school.

“What we’re doing with that basically is pitching it where they can hit it,” said Brockway. “Everyone has their core math, but we’re using the data from Fastbridge to break them into these smaller groupings based on need. We’ve changed our schedule to include an MTSS reading time and math time throughout the day.”

“The MTSS programming is what’s affecting the whole of the test scores coming this way,” agreed Young. “It’s what we start down in the elementary that is impacting that positive trend, because if it was going the opposite way, we would have to catch up. So I have to give credit where credit is due, the elementary is doing a great job in implementing those systematic programs.”

Though both principals would like to see a continued growth in all areas of MCA testing in the years to come, they are content in the fact that not only do scores in NY Mills continue to increase, but that they are holding their own above the statewide average each year. An administrator from a nearby school district even reached out to Young to ask about the school’s planning and how they continue to see a rise in MCA scores.

“We’re doing what we’ve always done, really, except we’re using more of the MTSS programming and we’re bringing it to the high school, that’s basically intensive interventions now that we have an interventionist,” said Young. 

“I think anytime you’re having systematic supports in place throughout the grades, you’re going to see success,” agreed Brockway. “And you know, we’re not where we want to be, but we’re pleasantly happy to be above the state average.”

“It’s hard to tell your staff, ‘we’re doing great, we’re above the state,’ just because we want to go further,” said Young. “I’m just proud of everyone for showing constant growth. We have been fortunate with our staff that we’ve had along our path—strong paras, strong teachers, strong support staff—we’ve had good people.”

Along with analyzing all of the student data, balancing the mandates from the state, and working closely with students in order to best support their individual needs, Brockway and Young both agreed that the factor that remains consistent and extremely important to the success of students in NY Mills is the faculty.

“A big emphasis on the teachers for sure,” said Brockway. “We are the structure, the foundation builders, we’re making sure it’s all in place for them, but we want to give credit where it’s due, they are doing the work.”

“We have phenomenal teams,” agreed Young. “I love my team!”