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Austin.Parrish@house.mn.gov News Release REPS. KRESHA, BENNETT: STUDENT MCA TEST SCORES CONTINUE TO LAG THANKS TO EDUCATION POLICIES CHAMPIONED BY GOVERNOR WALZ AND DFL-LED LEGISLATURE ST. PAUL – The Minnesota Department of Education released the 2024 MCA test results recently, and the outcome for Minnesota’s students continues to be a failing grade. According to the data, all students are 49.9% proficient in reading, which is no change from last year’s findings. Most disturbing in this category: 3rd graders statewide are now at 46.5% proficiency, a decline from 47.4% in 2023. In math, all students are 45.5% proficient, which is no change from 2023. Science showed a very minor uptick in growth with all students at 39.6% proficiency – up from 39.2% last year. Since 2019, under Governor Walz and DFL, Minnesota has seen student proficiency rates decline 16 percent in reading, 17 percent in math, and 23 percent in science. According to State Representatives Ron Kresha (R-Little Falls), Republican Lead on the Minnesota House Education Finance Committee, and Peggy Bennett (R-Albert Lea) Republican Lead on the Minnesota House Education Policy Committee, these results are not due to a failure of our local schools or educators – the responsibility is with the policies championed by Governor Walz and a Democrat-led legislature. “Any educator will tell you that reading well by third grade is critical to future learning,” said Bennett, a former elementary school teacher. “We cannot continue pushing failed education strategies and expect better results. Republicans have offered numerous common-sense solutions that focus on academics, literacy, high expectations, and local control. Instead, the Democrats passed more than 60 new mandates that micromanage our schools, burdening and distracting them from the core academics that need our focus." “Minnesota schools and teachers now have more mandates to follow, and fewer students that have overcome the education achievement gap,” Kresha said. “Governor Walz and legislative Democrats continue to prioritize political agendas and failed policies instead of strategies and resources that would help all of our teachers and students succeed. These people are weird.” Kresha and Bennett noted that with these continued poor results, Minnesotans are seeing the failure of the DFL education agenda, which will have long term negative consequences for our students and our schools. “The lack of urgency from Governor Walz to address the continued decline of our student's reading, math, and science proficiency is unsurprising,” Kresha said. “Just like he allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in childcare fraud and Feeding Our Future scams through inaction, he is again failing to implement proper policy changes that will get student back on track.” ### |