A greater percentage of Maryland's elementary and middle schools met federal achievement standards than in recent years, even as the state raised the bar by requiring more students in each school to pass the yearly tests in reading and math.
Education officials released yesterday the state's annual report of school progress under the No Child Left Behind Act, with about 84 percent meeting targets. Maryland put 169 of 1,129 elementary and middle schools on a list of schools that need improvement, compared with 176 the year before.
In seven school systems - including Carroll County - every school met the standards.
But the state's new way of categorizing schools also illuminated the entrenched failure at 59 of the state's troubled schools, many in Baltimore and Prince George's County. Those schools have failed to meet the standards for at least five years in a row and some for as much as a decade despite repeated attempts at reform.
The state now puts schools that need improvement into categories of those with comprehensive issues and those that have selected problems among small groups of students. The latter include children in special education classes, those who are learning English, and poor or minority students.
Seventy-seven of the 169 schools statewide that need improvement had just a handful of students that failed the Maryland School Assessment. "I think the subgroup that has the greatest challenges based on our results are in special education. They are followed by English-language learners," said state school Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick.
The state's new system of categorizing schools is intended to address the fact that some schools with small numbers of failing students were subjected to the same draconian measures as those with systemic problems. A school like Hampstead Hill in the city, which has failed to meet the standard for several years because of the passing rates of a few special education students, will not be treated the same as one that has a majority of all its students who are failing.
"They aren't going to say dump all the teachers, change the school leadership," said Ben Feldman, head of testing in the city. Instead, he said, the new system "enables us to do something surgical and strategic" for those special education students.
