Scores on last spring's MCAS tests precipitously declined in Cambridge as district-wide scores felt the impact of the numerous students who boycotted the test, according to results released by the state yesterday.

Tenth graders' scores were down sharply. Two-thirds of the city's sophomores failed the English test and three-quarters failed the math exam. Starting this year, sophomores will have to pass both standardized tests--which are part of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System--in order to graduate.

The year before, 40 percent of sophomores failed the English test and 61 percent failed the math portion.

About 30 percent of sophomores at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS) did not take the MCAS last spring. Statewide, less than 5 percent of tenth-graders did not take the MCAS. The state Department of Education treats students who do not take the test as students who failed the test.

School officials say this adds up to inflated failure rates. They had been expecting a drop in scores, but the decline was even steeper than they had anticipated.

"It was discouraging to see the rates over the last three years show a trend toward higher rates of failure," said Joseph Petner, principal of the Haggerty School.

"The results are disappointing and clearly we need to ask the hard questions of ourselves why that is," he added.

Scores also decreased at the eighth-grade level and showed no improvement at the fourth-grade level.

Principals and administrators met yesterday to discuss the results.

Administrators had been hoping for an increase in reading scores because of intensive efforts at increasing literacy in the early grades. But results showed a slight decrease for fourth-graders on the English test.

Boycotting

Mass. Commissioner of Education David P. Driscoll said many high school students boycotted the English section of the test and others did not take the writing portion seriously. One of the problems, he said, was that last spring's scores did not count for tenth graders' graduation.

"We need to look at next year, when kids try," he said.

Driscoll said he agreed the boycott had "skewed" the tenth grade scores in Cambridge but said how to use the results was up to administrators.

"They need to look at that," he said of Cambridge school officials.

Boycotting "is something that parents have to think about. It is a counterproductive way of protesting MCAS," he added.

Cambridge school officials say they are looking into how boycotters skewed their test results.

Last year, more than 90 percent of tenth graders took the MCAS tests statewide. But in Cambridge, about 30 percent of sophomores--around 150 students--were absent from the test.

In their statistics, the state Department of Education gives a student who misses the test a score of 200, the lowest possible score. This practice distorts district-wide results in Cambridge, said Barbara Black, who analyzes test scores for the district.

According to Black's preliminary analysis, treating the boycotters differently could yield dramatically different results.

Among students who actually took the English test, she said, the failure rate was 53 percent--not 67 percent, as the state reported. On the math test, the rate was 64 percent--not 75 percent.

Discounting the students who did not take the test does not give a truly accurate picture of how tenth-graders performed on the MCAS tests, Black said. She said she has no way of knowing how the boycotters would have scored had they actually taken the test.

But Black said using the valid results was "standard operating procedure."

The King Open School traditionally has high MCAS scores. But only 18 of the school's 32 fourth-graders took MCAS last spring, which directly affected test scores. This year the King Open's numbers are down significantly, Groves said.

Not only school district results are skewed. State education officials have urged districts to use individual students' MCAS scores to identify their strengths and weaknesses, Groves said, which becomes impossible when there are no results to analyze.

"It's been a little hard to use it that way with this many kids not taking it," he said.

Statewide Summary

Driscoll presented the district-by-district results in an East Boston elementary school yesterday, flanked by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Thomas Payzant, superintendent of the Boston Public Schools.

Driscoll acknowledged that the gap between urban and suburban districts remained wide, but he said districts needed to keep working towards higher standards.

"We need to set a standard. We can't move the standard," he said.

"Boston clearly has gotten their act together. I think Boston is the exception," he added.

District with low scores "did not have a good plan, did not have supports in place," Driscoll said.

He also announced yesterday that fact-finding teams would begin examining four schools in the state that the state Department of Education had identified as "underperforming."

Within a month, Driscoll said, the department will compare 1999 and 2000 scores to 1998 scores for every school in the state and rate each school as meeting or failing to meet improvement guidelines set by the state.

The release of the scores came three weeks after the Massachusetts Association of School Committees criticized MCAS as "seriously flawed" and called for the state to hold off on using the test as a graduation standard.

And on Election Day two weeks ago, voters in Cambridge passed a non-binding referendum opposing the standardized test.

--Staff writer Andrew S. Holbrook can be reached at holbr@fas.harvard.edu.