"Thousands of students are at risk of not receiving a diploma. The state and the legislature should have this critical information by now so that they can consider the options," said Bebe Verdery, education director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.
"I think the delay ... confirms for some the concern that we have been building the airplane while it is in the air. It raises the question about whether we have enough time to respond to these results in a way that is meaningful for students who are impacted," said John Woolums, director of governmental relations for the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, a group that has supported testing and accountability measures but argued last fall that it was too soon to impose the high-stakes test on students.
The superintendents in Maryland have generally come out in support of the tests, even in school districts where a high failure rate is expected.
Wilson said she will give the school board a rough estimate at its meeting Tuesday of the number of students in the class who have passed the tests or have met the combined score allowed for the English II, biology, Algebra I and American government tests.
"We have very, very preliminary ideas," Wilson said.
The state has told school districts not to release any data on the High School Assessments to the news media until October.
Benjamin Feldman, who directs the Baltimore school system's research office, said the city's overall pass rates are encouraging. "We are very gratified. I think I am working in a new school system. We are having a renaissance."
Feldman said, however, that the data for the senior class shows "we have our work cut out for us." There are many students, he said, who are on the cusp of passing the tests.
Every Baltimore County high school knows which of its students haven't met the HSA requirements, said Kara Calder, spokeswoman for the school system. But getting that information gathered and into the form the state wants is proving difficult, she said.
