Middle school students at the Crossroads School near Fells Point were evaluated by teachers every single day last school year, with the results driving the next day's instruction.
At East Baltimore's Fort Worthington Elementary, about a quarter of the school's parents turned out for MSA Family Fun Night and sampled questions from the Maryland School Assessments.
Alexander Hamilton Elementary, situated in a West Baltimore neighborhood that the principal calls "gang-infested," started a gifted education program last year to challenge students to learn beyond their grade levels.
The principals of the three schools credit those and myriad other initiatives with making their schools among the most improved in Baltimore, during a year in which the school system overall posted historic gains on the standardized tests administered under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
"This is Baltimore leading the way," said Gov. Martin O'Malley. "And this is also Maryland leading the way. Showing the people in the rest of our country that our best days really can be ahead of us."
MSA test results released yesterday showed strong improvements by students statewide, particularly among black and low-income students. But nowhere were those gains bigger - or more surprising - than in Baltimore schools.
There, students posted sharp increases in math and reading scores, at times amid potentially devastating distractions. Alexander Hamilton students made major gains on tests in a neighborhood so challenged that the school was under lockdown for three days because of nearby shootings, including that of a police officer. Principal Charlotte Jackson said a key to success has been persuading gang members, through gang-prevention workshops, to respect the school's boundaries and not recruit their younger siblings, leaving them free to concentrate on academics.
The city's MSA results are no fluke, schools chief Andres Alonso told a standing-room crowd of school officials, politicians, students and teachers at Fort Worthington yesterday.
"I have absolutely no doubt that we're going to replicate these results in the coming years," he said. "We will become a model school system for the nation as a whole."
Citywide, reading scores were up an average of 11 percentage points and math scores rose by 8 points. The biggest improvements were seen in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades, enabling the city to buck a national trend of stagnation among middle school students.
