Maryland School Performance

Parents of students in the Northeast High School feeder system have the opportunity to find out more about the Maryland School Performance Program at a special meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at George Fox Middle School, 7922 Outing Ave.The principals of Solley, Riviera Beach, Sunset, High Point, George Fox and Northeast will join with the PTAs, PTSA and CAC members to discuss just what the program is and the impact of the statewide standards at their schools.Special...

Nancy S. Grasmick took perhaps the greatest gamble of her 15-year career as Maryland's schools chief by being the first state superintendent in the nation to seek a takeover under federal law. Critics immediately called her move political, an election-year shot designed to help her ally the governor keep his job. And within two days, she lost her first round in Annapolis when the General Assembly approved a one-year moratorium putting her bold attempt to...

When Elaine M. Davis walks the halls of Lyndhurst Elementary School in West Baltimore, the energetic and reform-minded principal sees proof through every classroom window that Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests have changed education in her building -- for the better.In a kindergarten class, students hold a science fair and write short essays about their experiments. Around the corner, second-graders hone their persuasive writing skills by "sending" letters to friends asking them to stay off drugs and addressing them: "Dear misguided person."

The following table shows what percentage of elementary school pupils scored at a satisfactory level in reading and math in tests administered last spring and in 2001 as part of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program. This is the last year for these tests, which will be replaced in the spring. Anne Arundel County Read 3rd Math 3rd Read 5th Math 5th School 2002 2001 2002 2001 2002 2001 2002 2001 Maryland Average 30.7 36.5 28.7 37.8 42.1 44.6 39.8 42.6 County Average 36.2 41.3 28.1 42.5 50.7 51.6 43.4 47.8 Annapolis 14.3 26.7 10.3 18.8 19.5 28.6 21.4 26.8 Arnold 45.8 61.9 54.5 71.8 55.6 64.6 67.1 62.4 Belle Grove 29.0 22.2 8.1 30.0 38.5 42.4 17.8 28.6 Belvedere 51.9 58.7 30.5 61.3 49.4 58.0 55.8 62.1 Benfield 64.2 65.6 66.7 71.2 71.2 78.9 73.1 78.4 Bodkin 70.0 76.4 78.3 82.5 71.2 74.8 64.4 85.5 Broadneck 59.2 67.1 40.2 69.6 50.5 72.4 65.8 65.3 Brock Bridge 63.5 54.8 50.6 28.6 46.5 46.3 33.8 41.8 Brooklyn Park 28.6 30.9 22.0 28.8 31.7 27.1 23.6 22.5 Cape St. Claire 40.0 36.3 35.0 50.4 55.8 65.3 50.0 53.7 Central 37.7 31.1 49.3 40.6 44.6 48.8 30.7 45.6 Crofton 44.8 53.9 30.2 53.7 55.8 56.9 53.0 60.2 Crofton Meadows 38.2 51.1 43.0 47.9 57.4 54.2 67.0 61.0 Crofton Woods 51.6 58.7 37.4 63.6 65.5 69.6 60.7 63.3 Davidsonville 58.6 65.3 50.0 76.0 75.2 60.7 63.9 66.1 Deale 12.2 28.9 15.2 34.7 37.8 44.3 39.6 47.0 Eastport 14.6 38.2 6.1 36.1 46.9 45.2 21.1 33.3 Edgewater 17.2 19.0 12.5 39.7 37.7 24.5 49.3 55.3 Ferndale 21.7 42.3 7.7 48.3 48.0 27.3...

As Howard County schools close their doors to students today for another summer, three elementary school staffs are likely to be celebrating just a little bit more than others. Northfield, Manor Woods and Longfellow Elementary schools' staffs recently received word that they get to spend the next two months planning what to do with the money they've received from the state for rising test scores. The three schools were among 61 statewide recognized by the State Department of Education for continuing to do well on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program exams.

WHAT'S A MIZPAP? Well, Marylanders from Oakland to Smith Island know about Mizpaps. The common pronunciation of the acronym for the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) can be used as a noun, adjective or verb.As in, "Let's Mizpap that assignment."Last week, I found a school that's been more thoroughly Mizpapped than any other in my wide acquaintance. Leith Walk Elementary in Northeast Baltimore has infused elements of the state's performance program into virtually everything it does.

DAN O'HEARN'S house in Atka, Alaska, faces east, out over the Bering Sea, the rising sun."It's a pleasant view," says O'Hearn, who teaches middle school in Atka. "It's a pleasant area. So quiet."If O'Hearn could see far enough, he could take in the whole of the United States. Atka, population 97, is the westernmost civilian community on U.S. soil. And the Atka School, enrollment 23, is the westernmost school.Atka is in the Aleutian Island chain of Alaska and has been occupied by Aleuts for more than 2,000 years.

Signs of trouble in Maryland's school testing program arrived with the 1995 scores.Six months after the students had hunkered down for the problem-solving exercises, the test results for a few schools soared while most others improved modestly or not at all.Officials who had praised the dramatic scores now acknowledge they were too good to be true.An investigation of the 1995 Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) test has revealed cheating incidents, lapses in monitoring and misunderstood directions.

As Howard County schools close their doors to students today for another summer, three elementary school staffs are likely to be celebrating just a little bit more than others. Northfield, Manor Woods and Longfellow elementary schools' staffs recently received word that they get to spend the next two months planning what to do with the money they've received from the state for rising test scores. The three schools were among 61 statewide recognized by the State Department of Education for continuing to do well on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program exams.

THE SELLING of the Tests.That might be the title of the public relations blitz going on in Maryland schools as the crucial Week of the MSPAP draws nigh this month.Meanwhile, state school officials are gearing up for testing that will determine high school graduation in 2004.All across the state, public school marquees and PTA newsletters are advertising "MSPAP nights," carnivals, fairs and other events designed to get students and parents in the mood for the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests this month.

For the second year in a row, Howard County elementary and middle school pupils scored lower than the previous year in state achievement exams, while two county schools that took new High School Assessment tests ranked among the highest in the state. Howard administrators were reluctant to make any assessments based on the scores released by the state yesterday, saying they have not had time to analyze the data - and the snow days yesterday and today have only made things worse. "It wouldn't be responsible of us to make any decisions in terms of instruction just yet until we find out what the patterns were across the state" said Kimberly Statham, the county's associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

Scores for Baltimore County's third- and eighth-graders fell in the latest round of MSPAP testing, but school officials quickly dismissed the results because Maryland is replacing the standardized exams. Meanwhile, the county ranked in the middle of the state's 24 school districts on the state's new high school exams. Those results, also released yesterday, showed that Towson, Hereford and Dulaney high schools scored among the highest in the region and Maryland. "No matter which assessment we use, that puts us in the middle of the ballgame, which means we have a solid school system," said Superintendent Joe A. Hairston.

Severna Park High School ranked among the best schools in Maryland on high school assessment results released yesterday - one of the few silver linings Anne Arundel schools officials could find as they discussed the county's generally dismal performance on the statewide tests. Overall, the county ranked between seventh and 15th in the state in the five subjects tested - much worse than the two top-performing school systems, neighboring Howard and Montgomery counties. "That's just totally unacceptable," said schools Superintendent Eric J. Smith.

Everyone hates Howard County's nearly annual school redistricting. County officials hate it, students hate it, administrators hate it. But parents hate it most of all. They don't want to move their children from the schools they attend. They say redistricting will break up communities, cause kids to lose friends, be nothing but a big hassle. But the root of their frustration - the problem no one wants to talk about - is Howard County's skeleton in the closet: Not all schools are equal.

AS EDUCATORS throughout Maryland anticipate the imminent announcement of the new state assessment program, I wonder how much the rest of the community is watching. I've met with hundreds of people since my arrival in Maryland several months ago, many of them members of the business community. I sensed that they recognize that the announcement of the successor to the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) is the most important news the Maryland business community will hear for a very long time.

BACK TO school for 53,501 Maryland teachers, and what's new is already laid to rest. For the first time in more than a decade, there will be no Maryland School Performance Assessment Program hanging over teachers and principals like the sword of Damocles. In fact, for a few days until state Education Department officials announce a new test - they're in the final stages of the selection process - there won't even be a MSPAP successor to worry about, at least in elementary and middle schools.

Today's highlights 10 a.m. Senate meets, Senate chamber. 10 a.m. House of Delegates meets, House chamber. 1 p.m. House Ways and Means Committee, hearing on proposed changes to the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program, Room 110, Lowe House Office Building.

Percent of students statewide who achieved a satisfactory score in the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program MSPAP) reading test.1994 -- 30.6%1995 -- 34.0%1996 -- 35.3%1997 -- 36.8%Pub Date: 2/22/98

IF WE'RE to believe the test results, the anecdotes and the testimony of frustrated teachers, what American students know about history is abysmal. In recent national testing, only 29 percent of high school seniors could connect the Tonkin Gulf Resolution with the Vietnam War. Forty-one percent knew what the Monroe Doctrine was about. A teen in a New York high school American studies class said her state's attorney general was the "one that says on the cigarette pack that you shouldn't smoke because it gives you cancer."

Parents will have a better chance this fall to rescue their children from underperforming schools across the Baltimore region, thanks to a new federal law. But moving to a better school still might prove more difficult than Congress intended. The No Child Left Behind Act, signed this year by President Bush, requires every school district to give parents of students in poorly performing schools a chance to transfer their children to higher-achieving schools - and it requires the school districts to pay for the buses to take them there.