Reading Test

Maryland gains in last year's national reading test were inflated because of an increase in the number of special education pupils excluded from the testing pool, the U.S. Education Department said yesterday.But federal and state officials said overall results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were valid and that no scores or rankings will be officially changed.Nine percent of Maryland fourth-graders were excluded from the NAEP test in 1998, up from 7 percent in 1994.

JOHNSON CITY, Texas -- The county is Blanco, and it's about the only thing hereabout that's not named for Lyndon Baines Johnson or his family.The local public school, naturally, is LBJ Elementary. It's where the 36th president went to grade school, though he learned to read at age 4 in a one-room school 14 miles and a million flowering bluebonnets west of here.It was in that school, now restored, that Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The "original education president," the National Park Service guide tells a group of us on tour, signed 50 major pieces of school legislation and believed "the only valid passport from poverty is an education."

Maryland education officials said yesterday they are confident real gains are being made in state pupils' reading skills, and that their scores on the latest national reading assessment test were not inflated by excluding more special education students from taking it."Our reading gains are modest, but we believe that they are real," said Ronald A. Peiffer, assistant superintendent for the Maryland Department of Education, noting the state's reading tests show similar gains.The average score for Maryland fourth-graders taking the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

Maryland officials put their best face on the state's results in the latest national reading assessment yesterday, but there were no miracles to brag about.State-by-state results for the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were released yesterday in Washington, and Maryland fourth-graders showed modest gains.There also were signs that more of the state's poorest readers had reached the basic level of skills.Overall, federal officials cited Maryland as one of 10 states that had made "solid progress" on the tests.

For Baltimore County educators, the proof of improved early reading instruction lies in the numbers.More county first- and second-graders are reading at grade-level than ever before. The percentage of third- and fifth-graders scoring satisfactorily in reading on Maryland's annual tests has jumped over the past two years. And almost three-quarters of the county's 100 elementary schools showed improvement on the state reading tests given last spring."We believe that these results show that we're doing the right things in the early grades," says Baltimore County schools Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione.

After years of random strategies that produced mixed results at best, Maryland's schools -- from kindergarten through college -- appear to be piecing together a sharper, more consistent focus on reading instruction.Across the state, the greater stress on reading instruction is evident in myriad ways.Beginning next summer, both new and experienced teachers will be required to take more courses in how to teach reading.Reading specialists are back. Often the victim of budget cuts, these teachers are returning to most elementary and even middle schools to help pupils and other teachers.

If the reading test results from the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program were set to music, the eighth note would be sour.Third- and fifth-grade MSPAP scores continue a steady, if not spectacular, climb. But the program's annual report card released Tuesday shows barely a quarter of the state's eighth-graders read at a satisfactory level. And eighth-grade test scores have shown no growth since MSPAP began reporting school-by-school results six years ago."Eighth-grade reading scores are barely moving," said a disappointed Nancy S. Grasmick, state superintendent of schools.

WE GET MAIL:On Oct. 11, we expressed disappointment that spring test scores were about equally dismal at two city elementary schools tracked through the 1997-1998 school year by Sun reporters. Surely, we had thought, City Springs Elementary, with its proven Direct Instruction program, would have outpaced Lyndhurst Elementary, with an unstructured approach to reading instruction.Robert C. Embry Jr., president of the Abell Foundation and former president of the city and state school boards, suggests that might be what is happening.

Thousands of Baltimore's elementary students gleaned only a few months of learning from 180 days in city classrooms last year, according to results of a critical twice-a-year reading and math test the school board will use to evaluate everything from student progress to teacher and principal performance.The poor showings were a disappointment -- if not a total surprise -- to school board members, who are in their second year of major reform efforts and had hoped to see more signs of improvement.

Bryan had crying fits. Kristen didn't recognize her own name. Jerry ran out of the room.Jasmine cursed the teacher. And Jamie and Darnetta were way, way behind.These are the children, with many others like them, who worry teachers at City Springs and Lyndhurst as Baltimore schools this week begin citywide assessment tests.These children have come so far in the past eight months, but will their progress register on a test that is looking for empirical answers? Will these children read as first-graders should?