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Cambridge School Committee members urged newly hired Superintendent David G. Murphy to take action to address large district-wide achievement gaps during Tuesday’s School Committee meeting.
The results of the 2024-25 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System accountability report revealed overall growth but deep disparities along socio-economic and racial lines. Last week, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education recognized Cambridge Public Schools as the largest district to have returned to pre-coronavirus achievement levels.
“These overall gains that we’re seeing in a lot of places are exciting, but the continued gaps are extremely distressing,” school committee member David Weinstein said. “That’s why we all are so frustrated, because we know that every child should be able to do much better than we are currently supporting every child to do.”
While MCAS performance increased overall in the past year, Black students remain furthest from pre-COVID achievement levels in both English Language Arts and math. In grades three to eight from 2019 to 2025, there was an 11 percentage point decrease in the fraction of Black students meeting or exceeding expectations, a sharp contrast to the 8 percentage point increase among white students.
At Tuesday’s meeting, which focused almost entirely on discussing MCAS scores from last year, committee members spent most of the three hours directly addressing the new superintendent — appointed just the day before — about the work that lay ahead of him.
“We have a school where 94 percent of the students are not at the level,” committee member Richard Harding Jr. said to Murphy. “Somebody has to look at the instructional practice.”
“You're the guy now,” he added.
Out of the lowest performing quarter of students in 2025, 92 percent are identified as “high needs,” which is defined as either having an Individualized Education Plan, being a multi-lingual learner, or identifying as low-income, according to the CPS presentation from Tuesday. More than 30 percent of Black and Latino students were reported to have IEPs compared to just over 20 percent of white students and 13 percent of Asian students. Schools having a high percentage of “high needs” students were more likely to have lower average MCAS performances.
Murphy said that while some of the disparities can be attributed to socio-economic trends, there is a “pronounced level of disproportionality” with regards to IEPs.
“While it’s not a challenge that is specific to Cambridge, it is something that Cambridge and all other school districts have a responsibility to look closely at,” Murphy said, adding that the district should reconsider how it identifies students to be put on IEPs.
Murphy cited multiple CPS programs aimed at improving achievement gaps, including the district-wide Excel Tutoring program, a specialized after-school program for students performing below grade level.
Committee members, including Weinstein and Harding, suggested that teachers’ professional development needs to address systemic bias explicitly.
“We have to have an honest conversation with the union — to whoever’s in front of these kids — and say, ‘Look, this is the data. Are you going to join us in good faith to change this?’’’ Harding said, referring to the Cambridge Education Association, which represents teachers and staff in CPS.
School Committee Member Elizabeth C.P. Hudson complained that the superintendent's assessment of MCAS scores failed to recognize the persistence of performance disparity.
“We’ve spent a decade saying, ‘it’s getting better, and our growth is really great.’ And if that were true, then the scores would be better than they are today,” Hudson said. “Frankly, that doesn't make any sense, right? That's bullshit.”
CPS announced five goals in their presentation in order to respond to the disparities, which consist of creating a consistent curriculum to be used across all CPS schools, “increasing staff and changing schedules,” prolonging the school day for elementary and upper schools, continuing the Excel Tutoring Program and expanding universal preschool.
School Committee Chair and Mayor E. Denise Simmons told Murphy that whatever support the district implements must ultimately get results.
“If that support is not leading to something tangible, which is better data, that’s not enough,” Simmons said.
The School Committee will continue discussing CPS’s MCAS performance report in their Oct. 21 and Nov. 18 meetings.
—Isabel K. Crews contributed reporting.
