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The Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) school district received good news from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) when the agency released the results of the latest Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) on Monday, September 29, 2025.
SPS was one of 41 districts where 2025 MCAS scores in grades 3-8 overall were at or above pre-pandemic levels in Math. In the case of SPS, scores in Math matched the pre-pandemic level, though English Language Arts (ELA) remains behind the pre-pandemic level.
In grades 3-8, 73% of SPS students met or exceeded expectations for Math, 71% met or exceed expectation in ELA, and 73% met or exceeded expectations in Science and Technology/Engineering.
The ELA scores remain five points behind the pre-pandemic 2019 scores, but were a six-point improvement over 2024. That offsets a six-point drop from 2023 to 2024, while the district continues with an ELA curriculum update that has been underway for more than half a decade.
Scores were largely consistent across schools and subjects, with the exception of the Israel Loring Elementary School, which lagged far behind the district’s scores overall. 58% of Israel Loring students met or exceeded expectations in ELA, and 60% met or exceeded expectations in Math. While those fell short of the other schools, which were 73% or higher in both subjects, it far outperformed state performance overall, which hovered around 40% meeting or exceeding expectations in all subjects.
Junior Varsity Blues?
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School saw a sharp decline in scores across the board. The grade 10 scores reflected a seven-point slide in ELA, from 83% meeting or exceeding expectations in 2024 to 76% in 2025. In Math, students also dropped seven points year-over-year, from 85% in 2024 to 78% in 2025. The biggest drop was in Science and Technology/Engineering, which fell from 83% meeting or exceeding expectations in 2024 to just 70% in 2025.
Nearby Concord-Carlisle declines in scores as well, but much smaller overall, with the district still hitting 80% of students meeting or exceeding expectations in all subjects. Acton-Boxborough grade 10 students also saw smaller declines, while standout districts Lexington and Dover-Sherborn held mostly steady with scores in the mid 80’s or higher, including 91% of Dover-Sherborn students meeting or exceeding expectations in grade 10 ELA, and 87% of Lexington students meeting or exceeding expectations in grade 10 math.
While the Lincoln-Sudbury scores don’t follow the trend of peer districts, they were consistent with an overall decline in grad 10 scores across the state.
Covid Looms Large
While DESE continues to emphasize getting back to pre-pandemic levels statewide, higher performing and better-resourced districts like Sudbury’s didn’t see as big a drop in scores as districts in less affluent communities during the Covid-19 years. To complicate things further, last year Lincoln-Sudbury had a strong showing while SPS was backsliding. Sudbury’s districts appear to have traded places, at least with regard to the trend line in their MCAS scores.
Many educators have objected to MCAS scores as a measure of academic achievement, and Massachusetts voters approved a ballot measure in November 2024 that eliminated MCAS as a graduation requirement.
Whether it is school rankings or scores on standardized test scores, both of Sudbury’s districts have communicated in the past that they don’t capture the complete picture of academic performance and advancement.
Get The Data
Access the data direct from DESE here.
Access the Boston Globe Database here.
Access DESE accountability data here.