Satisfactory

Margaret C. Wicks is the principal of a Baltimore elementary school that the state of Maryland says is a failure.According to results of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program test, not a single student in last year's third grade at Holabird Elementary met minimum statewide standards in science or reading. In the fifth grade, no one achieved a satisfactory score in reading, social studies, writing or science.Every single one of those students was passed on to the next grade.And that was enough to prompt the state to list Holabird Elementary among 35 schools that it says must be improved or removed from the city's control.

THE HOWARD COUNTY school system's position as No. 1 in state achievement test scores comes at a time of considerable upheaval. What got it to this high point is becoming very much a part of the past, and keeping it there could prove difficult.Still, for now Howard's record on tests under the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program is impressive. Administered to third, fifth and eighth graders, Howard ranked first of all jurisdictions in the state in reading, math, social studies, science, writing and language.

Maryland students continue to improve their marks on the state's annual tests, but only four of 10 pupils are performing satisfactorily, according to the state Education Department's 1995 report card. Educational, political and business leaders -- including U.S. Education Secretary Richard W. Riley -- gathered yesterday at a news conference to praise the improved test scores as evidence that Maryland school reform is heading in the right direction. But they acknowledged that the state's schools have a long way to go. The Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests -- given the past five years to all third- , fifth- and eighth-grade pupils -- are intended to assess students' thinking skills.

Baltimore County school scores on state-ordered performance tests improved last year, with elementary schools registering what school officials called "strong gains" and middle schools showing considerable improvement.The officials praised the progress yesterday in releasing individual school results on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests at a news conference.Still, only about a fifth of the elementary schools -- 20 out of 98 -- achieved the state standard of satisfactory on one or more of the six tests given to third- and fifth-graders each spring.

Howard County has the highest overall percentage of students scoring at the satisfactory level on the state's new tests, but it has a long way to go to before all of its schools meet minimum performance standards, according to the latest statewide assessment.One-third of Howard's elementary schools passed some of the 12 categories on the new tests in the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP). The new standards don't formally count until next year."We're doing very well, and we might have the highest percentage in the state, but no one in the state is meeting [the new]

These charts show the percentage of students in each Carroll elementary and middle school who met the excellent and satisfactory standards in each subject area in 1993 and 1994. The State Department of Education goals are for 25 percent of the students to attain the excellent level and for 70 percent to reach the satisfactory level. (The satisfactory percentage also includes those in the excellent category.) The State excluded 1993 data for third-grade reading and eighth-grade science because of concerns about the validity of those results statewide.

SINGAPORE -- After two months of international debate about crime and effective punishment, American teen-ager Michael Fay was lashed with four strokes of a rattan cane in a prison here yesterday for spraying paint on cars.Although widely expected since the Fays' appeal for clemency was turned down Wednesday, the execution of his sentence provoked outrage from his parents, and the State Department called in the Singaporean ambassador to Washington to express its displeasure."I think it was a mistake," President Clinton told reporters in the Rose Garden, "not only because of the nature of the punishment related to the crime but because of the questions that were raised about whether the young man was in fact guilty and involuntarily confessed."

Howard County school officials are pleased with the latest county scores on a statewide test designed to measure how well students apply what they learn in the classroom.But they say there is room for improvement on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests, particularly in the areas of social studies and reading.Among school districts statewide, the county's 7,500 third- , fifth- and eighth-graders ranked first in math, reading and science, according to 1993 test scores released by the county last week.

Few Baltimore City or Baltimore County schools came even close to a "satisfactory" showing in the 1993 state performance test designed to measure how well students can apply their knowledge.Because of vastly different reporting procedures, however, it is difficult to compare local scores with the state averages released yesterday morning. Most school systems released their scores -- in many different forms -- later in the day.Only nine of Baltimore County's 94 elementary schools reached the state standard for satisfactory performance in at least one subject.

An upbeat school superintendent announced yesterday that Harford County met 11 of 13 criteria on the 1993 Maryland School Performance Report -- and gave the credit to a team effort by school employees."