Adequate Yearly Progress

The latest installment of Maryland School Assessment test results were released on the eve of the Fourth of July weekend, and school has been out for nearly a month, so it's hard to imagine very many people are paying close attention.  The Maryland Department of Education is slated to release another round of test results, those for high school students, in the next few weeks during the height of vacation season. The results released last week were for middle and elementary schools, and they showed four Harford County middle schools and two elementary schools are on the list of schools that need improvement.

Widespread cheating on state assessment tests has been uncovered at two Baltimore elementary schools, state and district officials are expected to announce today. Investigators with the state Department of Education found that Maryland School Assessment scores were compromised at Abbottston Elementary in 2009 and at Fort Worthington Elementary in 2009 and 2010, according to city schools CEO Andrés Alonso. The disclosure marks the second time in little more than a year that city school officials have had to acknowledge cheating at schools recognized nationally as models of successful urban education, including one visited by the first lady and the other by the U.S. secretary of education.

President Barack Obama pledged early on to make improving America's schools a priority, and changes he is proposing this week signal a much-needed overhaul of the nearly decade-old No Child Left Behind Act. Rather than doling out federal education aid based on the poverty level in a school district, as has been the practice for years, the Obama administration intends to distribute aid based on school systems' willingness to reform. In Baltimore City, where 85 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals because they come from low-income families, the loss of federal aid based on poverty levels might appear to threaten efforts to improve the system.

The announcement this week that the U.S. Department of Education will grant Maryland a waiver from some of the more onerous requirements of the decade-old federal No Child Left Behind Act is welcome news for the state's school reform effort. It means Maryland will be free to set more reasonable goals for student achievement levels and adopt reforms that are necessary to close the gap between its lowest- and highest-performing schools and school districts. Maryland needs a more rational and balanced approach to measuring educational progress, and now it can create one without having to wait for lawmakers in Washington to act. The decade-old NCLB law, passed by Congress with broad bipartisan support, was the signature education initiative of the Bush administrationt.

Dunbar High School in Baltimore City made "adequate yearly progress" in the new Maryland School Assessment. Montgomery Blair High School in Montgomery County got a terse computer message, black on yellow, as scores from the test were released yesterday: "Not met." Did a school hardly known for academic prowess suddenly outscore one of the nation's premier schools, one which wins a slew of academic awards yearly? No, according to Montgomery County officials. Blair has 834 Hispanic students, many with learning disabilities and limited English skills.

Sixty percent of Baltimore's elementary and middle schools failed to reach their annual progress goals based on state test results, a target that principals still strive for but the city schools CEO sees as becoming irrelevant. Though Maryland School Assessment scores for city students in math and reading were flat or showed some gains this year, 85 of the 142 Baltimore elementary and middle schools did not meet the goals known as adequate yearly progress, according to data from city schools.

When the strongest vibrations of Tuesday's earthquake struck during the first day of school in Anne Arundel County, students at Wiley Bates Middle School in Annapolis heeded evacuation instructions blared over the public address system and filed out of the building without much commotion. When the students were outside, about a dozen approached Principal Diane Bragdon, asking whether it was a drill. "I guess they thought I could simulate shaking the building or something," said Bragdon.

An assistant principal who helped turn around sagging academics at a Detroit public school - and most recently was an assistant principal - was named to head Edgewood Middle School. Lawrence O. Rudolph was appointed by the Harford County Board of Education during a Monday meeting. He will take the helm in July at the Edgewood school, which has not met adequate yearly progress standards in five years. As required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the school had to take action in an effort to get off the Needs Improvement list.

As federal education standards grow more stringent, more Maryland schools are failing to make the grade - 241 last school year, up from 196 the year before, according to Maryland State Department of Education statistics released yesterday. Most of the schools added to the list of those not making "adequate yearly progress" are in Baltimore City, and Prince George's and Montgomery counties, with a few from Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties. ONLINE To see a list of schools that did not show adequate progress in each county, go to baltimoresun.