Even the youngest students, third graders who were only in kindergarten when schools shut down, remain significantly behind their pre-pandemic peers.

MCAS results for 2024 show a more mixed result than the positively trending 2023 results and remained lagging well behind pre-pandemic scores, state education officials said in an embargoed

"The power of being in school is definitely clear in the achievement results in the 2024 MCAS results," he said. Additionally, 3% of the state's roughly 1,800 public schools were cited as making "limited or no progress" in 2024, down from 6% in 2023.