Students across the state improved their test scores in this year's Maryland School Assessments, enabling nearly 400 schools that had been in academic trouble to avoid being designated as failures.
Buoyed by the scores, 25 schools previously designated as failures earned their way off the list, state education officials said yesterday.
Still, 32 Baltimore City schools performed so poorly over several years that they now must be overhauled, officials said.
This could include having to replace teachers, administrators and curriculums.
"Looking at what could have been and what isn't," said state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, "we are relieved and pleased.
"The majority of schools put on alert last year have come through with flying colors."
All 24 Maryland districts improved their scores in this year's tests, which were given in February in reading and mathematics in grades three, five, eight and 10.
The complex 2-year-old No Child Left Behind Act requires all schools to make "adequate yearly progress" in mathematics and reading until every child is proficient in 2014.
Last year, 525 schools across the state failed to make adequate progress, and officials worried that the majority would lag again this year, making them eligible for the label "in need of improvement."
"That didn't happen," said Grasmick, noting that 388 of those schools made progress this year and thus avoided the failure tag.
"While we're not pleased that 84 schools didn't progress this year, literally hundreds more could have," she said. "Last year amounted to a wake-up call. Most of these schools looked seriously at their instructional programs and made substantial improvement."
Price of failure
Designation as a failing school triggers a range of actions schools must take under the federal act. Schools that fail to make adequate progress are required to come up with their own improvement plan. If schools continue to fail over a period of years, a state must require a thorough overhaul.
If Title I schools, those with a high percentage of children in poverty, are placed in the failing category, their students are allowed to transfer to more successful public schools and are provided after-school tutoring and other help.
Grasmick praised Howard County for moving six schools off the failure list and Carroll County for having no schools even in the first-year "alert" stage.
