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Minnesota test scores down since pandemic; MDE pledges to do more

By: - August 25, 2022 4:45 pm

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Fewer than half of Minnesota students are proficient in math and 51% are proficient in reading, according to newly released results of standardized test scores.

The portion proficient in math decreased from 55% to 45% since the the last pre-pandemic round of tests.

Minnesota children proficient in reading decreased from 59% to 51%.

Just 41% of Minnesota students are proficient in science, down from 51% in 2019.

Seven percent of students didn’t take the tests, down from 20% in 2021. The tests weren’t given in 2020.

Minnesota’s racial gaps in education — for years among the nation’s worst — continued. Nearly 60% of white students were proficient in reading, compared to 31% of Black and Hispanic students, according to the Star Tribune.

The state Deparment of Education announced that 371 public schools — including 15 entire school districts — have been identified for varying levels of extra support through Minnesota’s “North Star accountability system.”

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J. Patrick Coolican
J. Patrick Coolican

J. Patrick Coolican is Editor-in-Chief of Minnesota Reformer. Previously, he was a Capitol reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for five years, after a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan and time at the Las Vegas Sun, Seattle Times and a few other stops along the way. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and two young children

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