For the first time in at least a dozen years, children in Baltimore City elementary schools are performing better on math and reading tests than their peers in some other Maryland districts, and the city is being removed from a state list of failing systems.
Students throughout the state continued to improve on the Maryland School Assessments given in March, according to results released Tuesday. But city students have made some of the greatest gains, and now score better in math and reading than their peers in Prince George's and Dorchester counties.
When the test mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act was first given in 2004, only about one in three city students passed the math test, while nearly twice as many did this year. The jumps in reading scores also have been large.
"What is really heartening is to see Baltimore join the ranks of urban school districts across the country that are seeing substantial improvements in academic achievements," said Michael Casserly, head of the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation's largest urban school systems.
City schools CEO Andres Alonso noted that the number of Baltimore students receiving "advanced" grades - the highest possible score - doubled over the past two years. Alonso celebrated the achievement at an elaborate ceremony featuring U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan at Abbottston Elementary School in Northeast Baltimore, where 100 percent of students passed the reading test.
In the suburban districts around Baltimore, where families have moved for decades for quality schools, the passage rate on the much-scrutinized tests remained largely high. But the improvement rate has been slowing, and some schools and grades showed slight dips.
Across the state, some pass rates are so high in some counties and at many schools that it will be difficult for them to continue to improve. About one-third of the state's 910 elementary schools have 90 percent or more of their students passing the tests. In some cases, the counties saw dips in achievement, which state officials said was normal because statistically it becomes more difficult to get every student to pass.
"As the bar continues to rise, it becomes more and more difficult for all student groups in all schools to hit the target," Howard County Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin said in a statement.
