Adequate Yearly Progress

CLARIFICATION - A headline for an article in Thursday's Anne Arundel County section on Brooklyn Park Middle School's varying results in attempting to meet federal "adequate yearly progress" requirements may have left the impression that the school failed to meet the standard in the past school year. The school met adequate yearly progress requirements the last school year. Losing a game or failing a test by just one or two points has always had a particular sting.

With the academic turnaround at Annapolis High School solidified, Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell has adjusted staff scheduling to return the majority of the staff to a 200-day-a-year schedule. Under Maxwell's plan, which was agreed to by collective bargaining units and announced last week, department chairs in the four core academic subject areas, special education and ESOL will remain on the 12-month schedules. The school's testing, International Baccalaureate, Middle Years Program and signature program coordinators will also remain as 12-month employees.

ISSUE: Maryland has set standards that each school must meet to demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" on state math and reading tests, as required under the federal No Child Left Behind legislation. Tomorrow, schools across the state will find out whether enough of their students passed standardized tests to meet the standards. Last year, two Harford County middle schools - Edgewood and Aberdeen - did not meet the standards. Many educators say the tests' role to determine progress may be exaggerated and that other factors, such as grade-point average, should be used to judge improvement.

Students across the state improved their test scores in this year's Maryland School Assessments, enabling nearly 400 schools that had been in academic trouble to avoid being designated as failures. Buoyed by the scores, 25 schools previously designated as failures earned their way off the list, state education officials said yesterday. Still, 32 Baltimore City schools performed so poorly over several years that they now must be overhauled, officials said. This could include having to replace teachers, administrators and curriculums.

A relatively low number of fifth- and eighth-graders scored at the highest level of the science portion of the Maryland Assessments, but school officials are optimistic that scores will rise as students become more familiar with the test. The test was administered for the first time in April, and students had the option to take it online. Measuring student achievement in science is a requirement of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, but it is not a measurement of adequate yearly progress under the act's guidelines.

Carroll County educators have cause to celebrate: None of the system's elementary or middle schools made the state's 2007-2008 list of Maryland schools in need of improvement. Last year, one elementary and five middle schools failed to meet federal government's benchmarks for "adequate yearly progress": Robert Moton Elementary and East, North Carroll, Oklahoma Road, Sykesville and West middle schools. Carroll Springs School, which serves students with disabilities throughout the county, also was identified as needing improvement.

Baltimore will be host for global trade shows The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association has booked a global trade show for travel planners that will generate an estimated $15 million in spending and 50,000 hotel room night bookings over five years, the convention agency said yesterday. The Americas Incentive, Business Travel and Meetings Exhibition, which will hold its inaugural event in Baltimore from June 29 to July 1, 2010, and each summer through 2014, is expected to bring 3,000 attendees annually and boost the city's reputation as an international convention destination, BACVA said.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s new ad running on Baltimore television revisits a familiar topic: city schools. It is his sixth consecutive ad in the Baltimore media market to focus on schools and the fourth to criticize Ehrlich's Democratic opponent, Mayor Martin O'Malley, for his stance on education issues. This time, Ehrlich criticizes O'Malley over his reaction to a decision by the city school board to lower the passing grade for students from 70 percent to 60 percent. What the ad says: The commercial begins with Ehrlich speaking into the camera, saying that the city school board recently voted to lower passing standards for students.

Howard County students continued to outpace the state average at every grade level in reading and mathematics for the Maryland State Assessments. All 39 elementary schools achieved the more stringent local standard of 70 percent scoring at proficient or advanced in reading and mathematics, according to scores released Monday by the Maryland State Department of Education. At the middle school level, every school achieved the local standard of 70 percent of students scoring at the proficient or advanced levels in reading.

Carroll County schools again scored well above the state average in most categories measured by the Maryland School Assessment, though the school system saw slightly decline in seven of the 12 grade-level measures of math and reading. Figures for latest round of MSAs were released by the state on June 29. The MSA was administered to 365,000 students throughout the state in grades three through eight. The test fulfills the federally mandated No Child Left Behind Act, used to determine if students of all sub-groups are making adequate yearly progress.