Performance Assessment

School performance assessment will be the subject of the xTC next meeting of the Women's Club of Hampstead at 1 p.m. tomorrow at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Main Street, Hampstead.Judith Dorsch Backes, supervisor of school performance and assessment for Carroll County public schools, will speak.Backes has been a teacher of the emotionally impaired at all grade levels and an elementary school principal. As an assistant principal for high school curriculum, she earned a master's degree in educational leadership and a doctorate in educational administration.

STATE EDUCATION officials have always said MSPAP is all about accountability. The program's opponents have always said its purpose is indiscernible, because the test doesn't include simple, straightforward questions. Turns out they were both wrong. MSPAP is about cash. Federal dollars, to be specific. State education officials last week reversed an earlier decision to make the eighth-grade MSPAP test optional this year and announced instead that 16 counties will have a choice about the test, but the other eight jurisdictions will have to take it. Why?

RESULTS OF THE latest state report card show Carroll County schools continuing to excel, ranking second only to Howard County in overall scores in the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program.That achievement should be doubly satisfying because Carroll spends about $1,000 less per pupil on education than neighboring Howard, and Carroll's teacher-to-pupil ratio is one of the highest in the state.It is an impressive rejoinder to those who claim that more money and more teachers are keys to academic success, at least as measured in the state's annual "red book" report cards on all public schools.

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.

Board recognizes staff achievementsThe Carroll County School Board is recognizing these staff members for their achievements:* Linda Danmyer, secretary in Curriculum Division: for receiving a certificate of appreciation from Gov. William Donald Schaefer for her work on Total Quality Management conferences last fall.* William Hill, machine technology instructor at the Career and Technology Center: for receiving the award of excellence from the Greater Baltimore Committee and Regional Technology Council for efforts in developing student awareness of manufacturing careers.

Keeping track of how Howard County has fared on the battery of state-mandated tests in recent years hasn't been difficult: County students generally score well on all of them.This year was no different. Howard ranked first among the state's 24 jurisdictions on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program, which covers a number of criteria including three assessment tests. The Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills and the Maryland School Performance Assessment Test are administered in the third, fifth and eighth grades, while passage of the Maryland Functional Test is required of ninth graders (although most school systems begin administering it in middle school)

Most members of Maryland's largest teachers union generally support the state's school performance assessment tests but say some changes are needed, a poll released yesterday shows.The survey of more than 400 members of the Maryland State Teachers Association found that 60 percent said they think the assessment program is improving the education of students in their schools.And 83 percent of the teachers said they think their schools are "on the right track" with the program, formally known as the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program.

More than half of Howard County students are getting good marks on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program, but African-American students lag behind their counterparts.More than half of all students in third, fifth and eighth grades who took the test scored in the top three levels of the math, social studies and science subjects. More than 40 percent of them scored in that range in the reading section.Scoring in the top three levels is considered good by state school officials, who by summer are expected to finish setting a standard of performance to rank students.

IT'S always hard to oppose ideas as popular as motherhood, apple pie or teaching kids to read. But get down to specifics -- how to discipline a child, which recipe makes the best pie, or how to ensure good reading instruction -- and the consensus falls apart.That was evident last Wednesday at the Maryland State Board of Education's public hearing on proposals to increase the courses in reading instruction required for teacher certification.Nobody opposes the goal of better reading instruction.

At school's end today, educators throughout Maryland will have survived the fourth year of the Maryland State Performance Assessment Program tests in grades three, five, and eight. I will participate in that collective sigh of relief. The test is very controversial. New and different things often are.One of the criticisms is that it evaluates schools and not individual students.Traditionally, standardized tests designed to rank students evaluated them for the purpose of sorting and tracking for instruction.

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.

WOULD YOU rather vacation in Killington, Vt., or Myrtle Beach, S.C.? That was the question put to 31 third-graders one morning last week at Leith Walk Elementary School in Northeast Baltimore. In reading class. At least, primarily in reading class. After a discussion of the location, weather and tourist attractions of the two cities, master teacher Michael B. McNelly -- who colleagues see as a model of how teachers must reinvent their approach to reading instruction -- passed out one-page essays descriptive of each place and asked his charges to read them silently.

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.

MSPAP examination is preferred method for measuring skillsMary Maushard's article ("Teacher's union seeks MSPAP changes," Nov. 10) provides insight into teacher perspectives on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) while raising some important concerns.I agree with those surveyed that "the MSPAP is an important tool in improving student achievement." It measures good teaching practices and encourages active learning to help all children succeed. Not only does the MSPAP help me deliver high-quality instruction, it prepares my students for the real world.

THE MARYLAND Board of Education is considering a policy that would require elementary- and middle-school teacher candidates to take 12 credit hours in reading. The same requirement would apply to experienced teachers. Those who teach high school students would have to pass two reading courses.The goal here -- ensuring that all teachers are able to teach their students to read -- is beyond dispute. For a number of reasons, however, the proposed requirements are unwise.First, the proposed requirements conflict with state policies that focus on standards and accountability rather than on educational processes.

IT'S always hard to oppose ideas as popular as motherhood, apple pie or teaching kids to read. But get down to specifics -- how to discipline a child, which recipe makes the best pie, or how to ensure good reading instruction -- and the consensus falls apart.That was evident last Wednesday at the Maryland State Board of Education's public hearing on proposals to increase the courses in reading instruction required for teacher certification.Nobody opposes the goal of better reading instruction.

The state's report card on the performance of Harford schools is getting longer, with the addition of two new tests given to pre-secondary students last spring, and some educators are raising the question whether children are being over-tested."

THE MARYLAND Board of Education is considering a policy that would require elementary- and middle-school teacher candidates to take 12 credit hours in reading. The same requirement would apply to experienced teachers. Those who teach high school students would have to pass two reading courses.The goal here -- ensuring that all teachers are able to teach their students to read -- is beyond dispute. For a number of reasons, however, the proposed requirements are unwise.First, the proposed requirements conflict with state policies that focus on standards and accountability rather than on educational processes.

Most members of Maryland's largest teachers union generally support the state's school performance assessment tests but say some changes are needed, a poll released yesterday shows.The survey of more than 400 members of the Maryland State Teachers Association found that 60 percent said they think the assessment program is improving the education of students in their schools.And 83 percent of the teachers said they think their schools are "on the right track" with the program, formally known as the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program.

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."