The bulletin board for America's public schools. Parents, teachers, students, and staff. One community per school.

Test scores

Major Howard W. Beal School · Shrewsbury, MA
See how it ranks: all Massachusetts schools by score · Worcester County schools by score

MCAS, SY 2024-25

All grades, all students. % Meeting or Exceeding Expectations.
English Language Arts
51.0%
State avg 43.8%
District avg 60.5%
County avg 40.4%
-6.0pp since 2021-22
Mathematics
71.0%
State avg 42.2%
District avg 68.2%
County avg 39.1%
+7.0pp since 2021-22
Science
N/A
State avg 44.2%
District avg 64.3%
County avg 41.5%

What this means: On the MCAS, Massachusetts's statewide test, about 51 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 71 of 100 do math at grade level. Across all Massachusetts schools, those numbers are about 44 and 42. Reading and writing scores are down about 6 points since 2021, while math scores are up about 7 points.

By grade, SY 2024-25

School score vs state average per tested grade.
GradeEnglish Language ArtsMathematicsScience
SchoolStaten testedSchoolStaten testedSchoolStaten tested
Grade 353.0%43.4%11871.0%44.4%116N/AN/AN/A
Grade 450.0%41.2%11872.0%43.6%117N/AN/AN/A

Performance levels, SY 2024-25

Share of tested students at each MCAS level.

English Language Arts

GradeExceeding ExpectationsMeeting ExpectationsPartially Meeting ExpectationsNot Meeting Expectations
Grade 36.0%47.0%38.0%9.0%
Grade 48.0%42.0%37.0%13.0%

Mathematics

GradeExceeding ExpectationsMeeting ExpectationsPartially Meeting ExpectationsNot Meeting Expectations
Grade 323.0%47.0%22.0%7.0%
Grade 417.0%55.0%23.0%5.0%

Each tested student counts in exactly one level, so each row adds to about 100%. The headline Meeting or Exceeding Expectations rate is the sum of the top two levels.

4-year history

All grades, all students. Major Howard W. Beal   Massachusetts avg

English Language Arts

45572021-2246562022-2343522023-2444512024-25
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2024-2551.0%60.5%40.4%43.8%
SY 2023-2452.0%59.9%39.5%42.8%
SY 2022-2356.0%63.4%43.0%45.6%
SY 2021-2257.0%64.4%42.3%44.7%

Mathematics

42642021-2243652022-2343702023-2442712024-25
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2024-2571.0%68.2%39.1%42.2%
SY 2023-2470.0%67.2%40.1%43.1%
SY 2022-2365.0%67.4%40.8%43.0%
SY 2021-2264.0%65.2%39.6%41.7%

Recent discussions

From the Major Howard W. Beal School community.

See all discussions at Major Howard W. Beal School →

How to read these scores

What is MCAS?
MCAS (the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) is the statewide test for Massachusetts public schools. Students in grades 3 through 8 take it in English Language Arts and Math, with Science added at grades 5 and 8. High school students take grade-10 MCAS in ELA and Math plus a high-school Science test (Biology or Physics) for graduation.
What does "% Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" mean?
It is the percentage of students at the school whose scores were rated "Meeting Expectations" or "Exceeding Expectations" on the test. Those are the top two of four MCAS performance levels (Not Meeting, Partially Meeting, Meeting, Exceeding) and they signal the student is performing at grade level or above. A higher number is better.
What does 51.0% mean for English Language Arts at Major Howard W. Beal School?
It means about 51.0 percent of students tested at Major Howard W. Beal School performed at grade level or above on the MCAS English Language Arts test in 2024-25. The statewide average for Massachusetts that year was 43.8%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Massachusetts, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), via the Education to Career open data portal. School-level All Students subgroup. Headline metric is the cumulative "Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" rate (top two of four performance levels).
How often is it updated?
MCAS is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.

← Back to Major Howard W. Beal School