Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment data is in, and local school administrators are breaking down the highlights and lowlights of this year’s test data.

Most area school districts made positive strides in math and reading proficiency.

Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City School District increased its proficiency rates by 6 percent in both math and reading. The largest local increase came from Dassel-Cokato, whose math proficiency numbers jumped 13 percent over 2007.

Litchfield School District was the lone area district to see its numbers fall. The district reported 62 percent of its students proficient in math and 68 percent in reading.

While the numbers fell to state average, Litchfield District Assessment Coordinator Gregg Zender said it’s about looking at the pluses and the minuses.

“As a I look over the three years, we’re keeping up with the state average, and as a state we’ve made increases every year,” Zender said.

“Every year is a little different. I don’t get wound up over any one year. I look at ‘Are we making progress toward (100 percent proficiency)?’ And I think we are,” he added.

The MCA-IIs meet the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which requires all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. The tests are given to students in grades three through eight. Tenth-graders also take a reading test and 11th-graders the math test.

Read the complete story in the July 3 Independent Review.