The District released its second report on detracking and its effect on student performance on Dec. 18. The previous report, self-conducted by the District, was released in September 2023, was met with criticism from advocacy group Students First and other community members over alleged bias in the study.
As a result, the District signed a $54,000 contract with Hanover Research Institute last April to compile data from all District schools and assess the effects of detracked English and science courses from 2014 to the end of the 2023-24 school year.
The second report, which analyzes data from English and science courses for the graduating classes of 2017 to 2027, confirms many of the trends featured in the first for M-A.
Similar to the first report, the 2024 study found continued positive improvement for detracked freshman English at M-A. The detracked freshman English class, Multicultural Literature and Voice, displayed significant increases in pass rates for socioeconomically disadvantaged, or SED, students. The pass rate—students receiving a C- or higher—increased by 16%, with 93% of SED students passing MCLV in the class of 2027.
As for science, Chemistry and Physics both exhibited similar rates of SED enrollment in high-performing classes, with consistently low rates of SED students enrolling in the AP Physics I and AP Chemistry. However, sophomores taking Chemistry displayed an increase in both students meeting the D-requirement and students receiving As.
Except for a brief discussion on Biology enrollment for juniors and seniors, the report did not include further data on Biology grades or enrollment for M-A students after the class of 2023.
English Language Arts
SED students have shown an upward trend in pass rates since MCLV replaced English I and AS English I in the 2021-22 school year. While SED pass rates with a B or higher remained under 70% for the three preceding classes before MCLV’s implementation, they significantly increased for the classes of 2026 and 2027. While 48% of students from the class of 2025––the first class taking MCLV––passed with a B, 74% did from both the classes of 2026 and 2027. Simultaneously, the fail rate decreased from 32% in the class of 2025 to 7% in the class of 2027.
High fliers—students with a GPA of 3.5 or higher—shifted from varying pass rates in English I and AS English I to a consistent and increased trend in As after MCLV. While 14% and 75% of SED students from the class of 2024 received As in AS English I and English I respectively, 55% of SED students in the class of 2026 received an A in MCLV, and no SED students received below a B.
Slightly more SED students enrolled in accelerated sophomore and junior English classes. For sophomore year enrollment, 13% and 14% of SED students registered for AS English II for the classes of 2025 and 2026. Since its peak in the 2016-17 school year with 19% of SED students in AS English II, enrollment in sophomore year accelerated courses has depicted a slight decrease overall.
Junior year SED enrollment remained similarly flat in AS English III and AP English Language with the class of 2025 having only a 4% increase for AS English III.
Chemistry
In the 2021-22 school year, AS Chemistry was removed to offer a streamlined Chemistry course for all sophomores in the class of 2024. While the total number of students meeting the D-requirement has steadily increased from 51% in 2014-15 to 62% in the 2023-24 school year. The number of students receiving Fs has also increased since the 2014-25 school year, hovering around 5% and 6% for the classes of 2025 and 2026, respectively.
In general, all sophomores in Chemistry received more As and Bs after detracking, with an increasing proportion of students receiving As. While 57% of students received As and 20% received Bs in the class of 2024, 64% and 8% received As and Bs respectively in the class of 2026. This poses a large difference in the trends displayed prior to detracking, where the number of As would fluctuate anywhere from 36% for the class of 2023 to 46% for the class of 2022 for both AS Chemistry and regular Chemistry.
Post-streamlining, overall AP Chemistry enrollment increased, yet AP Chemistry SED enrollment remained low consistently. Since the 2015-16 school year, seven years before Chemistry was detracked, SED student enrollment for the course ranged from zero students for the classes of 2023 and 2024 to one student for the class of 2025.
Physics
Physics was detracked at M-A in the 2021-22 school year after AS Physics combined with AP Physics to create AP Physics I. That same year, M-A also introduced a higher-level AP Physics C course.
Each year, around 50-60% of students graduate without ever taking a physics course at M-A, with the highest being the class of 2024. However, the students who did take AP Physics after Chemistry enrolled into the course with rates similar to those in AS Physics pre-detracking. The percentage of students who had enrolled in AP Physics I replaced those who had enrolled in AS Physics years previous.
SED enrollment also remained consistently low with previous years at under 10%.
AP Physics I scores for the AP exam increased significantly. The number of students who earned a 5 quadrupled from 9% for the class of 2022 to 37% for the class of 2025. Additionally, the percentage of students who earned a 4 or a 5 more than doubled from 32% to 78% in those same years.
More questions about detracking at M-A? Visit the M-A Chronicle’s Detracking Page.
