Duluth schools show cohort reading gains; board hears MCA and North Star accountability results

District academic leaders presented spring 2025 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) results, local early-grade FastBridge data, and the state's North Star accountability outcomes to the Duluth Public Schools board on Tuesday, reporting pockets of strong cohort growth in reading while acknowledging persistent racial and special-education achievement gaps and North Star identifications for multiple schools. Brenda Spartz, director of elementary schools, and Jen Larva, director of secondary education, told the board the MCAs remain a “systems check” for standards implementation. Most MCA testing takes place in April within a six- to eight-week window, they said, and families retain an option to opt students out of the test. Reading: Comparing district-to-district year-to-year, district leaders said Duluth outperformed the Minnesota average in every tested grade, though the district's overall reading score slipped about 1.1 percentage points from 2024 to 2025. Leaders emphasized that cohort analyses—tracking the same students from…