Test Scores

AT NOON TODAY, people anywhere on the planet with access to the Internet will be able to look at the 1999 results of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) in more depth than would have been dreamed possible only a few years ago.They can learn all the major demographic and educational data for any public school in Maryland: enrollment, MSPAP test scores for seven years running, number of children receiving free lunches (a measure of poverty), student mobility rates, dropout rates, number of boys and number of girls, racial statistics, test results by race and gender -- and that's only a part of it.Thanks to computers and the Internet, interested parties can do some sophisticated comparisons.

The test scores arrived just before Thanksgiving, and hopes were high at Laurel Woods Elementary School.Last year, 40 percent of third- and fifth-graders at the North Laurel school had scored at least satisfactorily on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests -- relatively low for top-ranked Howard County, but up 7 percentage points from 1996.Then the bad news: Not only had the MSPAP scores not improved from the previous year, they had slipped almost 5 percentage points to 35.1.

At a critical point in Maryland's school reform effort, the state's political leaders expressed strong support yesterday for its performance-based testing program, despite this year's disappointing results.Seeking to avoid the fate of reform in some states -- where politicians have reacted to poor test scores by throwing out or changing the exams -- Maryland's leaders said they hope this year's decline in the state's test scores will prompt educators to rededicate themselves to improving instruction.

State test scores in Anne Arundel County schools dropped system wide, prompting Superintendent Carol S. Parham to call for a review of curriculum and teaching strategies in an effort to improve performance.Anne Arundel County scores have been essentially flat since 1996, hovering between 46 percent and 48 percent of students performing satisfactorily on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP).The 1999 test scores, showed that 46.6 percent of county students met state standards, down from 48.4 last year.

Howard County pupils' scores on the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills remained fairly stable this year, and the county once again scored 23 percentile points above the national norm.Taken in the spring, the CTBS tests second-, fourth-, sixth- and ninth-graders in reading, language and math. Overall, Howard County scored in the 73rd percentile -- same as last year -- with the 50th percentile representing the national norm.While the big picture looks good, school officials are homing in on some trouble spots, such as a "notable" drop in math scores between grades four and six. There is also lingering concern about the the overall test scores of African-American and Hispanic pupils, which lag behind those of Asian and white pupils.

AFTER YEARS of stout denials by the Educational Testing Service that the Scholastic Aptitude Tests are biased in favor of well-off white people, not only has Gaston Caperton, the new president of the parent College Board, admitted that test results indeed reflect socio-economic background and race, but ETS has found a fix for the problem.Anyone examining the facts -- students from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds score significantly below rich ones -- would assume the solution to lie in improving the education of the poor.

SCORES OF Carroll County public schools, in line with other county school systems, tailed off in the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests given last spring to third-, fifth- and eighth-graders.One reason mentioned by educators is that after six years the statewide tests may have reached a stage of maturity. Extra teaching effort to prepare for the test has reached a level where it can only yield smaller increases in test scores. Meanwhile, the state tests (covering language, science, math and social studies)

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?

For the first time in four years, Baltimore City showed real progress on the statewide tests of school performance, giving ,, school officials the first hint that a reform effort might be producing results.The city's third-graders were its stars. They raised their test scores by 5 percentage points for reading and writing and equaled a statewide increase in reading among third-graders."The third-grade scores in Baltimore City have taken an important upward climb," said state Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick.

Runnymede Elementary School in Taneytown has received a state grant of $31,498 for raising its Maryland School Performance Assessment Program test scores over the past two to three years.Taneytown Elementary and West Middle schools received certificates for making significant improvement on the state tests over a one-year period.The honors were part of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's school recognition program providing $2.75 million in grants to schools that improve their test scores.The School Performance Recognition Program was approved by the General Assembly in 1996 and is administered by the State Department of Education.

Nice places are tucked all over the Baltimore region, from urban rowhouse neighborhoods to rural outposts. I set out to find 10 that everybody and their brother doesn't already know about - ones with prices in reach of first-time homebuyers. Here are these hidden-gem neighborhoods, selected with the help of Real Estate Wonk readers. These aren't the only gems out there, and I'm not claiming they're the absolute best. (You'll never get a completely objective list out of something so subjective.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore released standardized test scores Thursday for the first time, showing that students who attend Catholic schools in the region score significantly above the national average. Middle-school students had the highest scores. Seventh-graders scored in the 73rd percentile nationally, meaning they scored better than 72 percent of other students on the math and reading portions of the Stanford 10, a nationally recognized test given to thousands of students across the nation.

Karen Stokes knows just what to do with the latest public school test scores showing big gains in Baltimore. Market them. "If the school improves, the neighborhood improves. And your real estate values will improve," said Stokes, executive director of the Greater Homewood Community Corp., a nonprofit organization working in the north-central part of the city where schools are improving. "Even if you have no children in the school ... what happens in your local school really does matter."

At Woodlawn Middle School, students work with a motto in mind: "Doing whatever it takes to achieve. ... Making the impossible ... possible." The latest state test scores show they've lived up to those words, making it possible for the southwest Baltimore County school to exit a state school-improvement list after nearly eight years. "So many people were saying that we weren't going to be able to make it," said Damien B. Ingram, who took over as principal this past year. "For so long, this school has not shown that we could make the necessary gains on the Maryland School Assessment tests.

Maryland's schools won another gold star this week when the College Board reported that the state ranked first in the percentage of high school seniors scoring well on the Advanced Placement tests, which entitle students to college credits at many higher-education institutions. The accolades will surely please state school officials, who have touted the progress the state has made in recent years. But like similarly upbeat assessments of state graduation rates and student achievement levels last month by the journal Education Week, the report shouldn't distract attention from the serious challenges the state still faces, particularly in its most troubled school districts.

State education officials acknowledged yesterday for the first time that they had changed the Maryland School Assessment this year in a way that experts say contributed to an unusually large rise in student test scores. According to experts, the test was shorter though not easier, which might have meant that students taking it were less tired. The tests have been given in grades three through eight in reading and math for the past five years."There was a psychological advantage," said Ronald A. Peiffer, Maryland deputy state school superintendent.

The drastic, across-the-board improvements in the performance of Maryland students on state standardized achievement tests are encouraging on many levels. They continue a steady, five-year rise in test scores statewide. The gap between white and black students' scores has halved since 2003, when the state began administering the tests to gauge schools' progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. And the biggest gains were in Baltimore City and Prince George's County, both jurisdictions with large poor and minority student populations.

The Baltimore school system posted historic gains on the Maryland School Assessments this year, with reading scores up an average of 11 percentage points and math up an average of 8 points. With the biggest improvement in fifth, sixth and seventh grades, the city bucked a national trend in which progress among young children stagnates or reverses by the time they enter middle school. Sixty-one percent of Baltimore's seventh-graders passed the reading test, compared with 43 percent last year, a jump of 18 percentage points.

Firefighters and officers to retake tests Baltimore firefighters and fire officers are scheduled to retake their promotional tests this weekend, but the results might never be disclosed, according to an order issued by Circuit Court Judge Evelyn Omega Cannon. About 300 firefighter and officers took a promotional exam in June, but a City Hall investigation found that six people cheated. City officials want those scores to be replaced by scores from the new test, which is to be taken Saturday.

The pressure for elementary schools to show progress under No Child Left Behind has come at a cost - less time is being devoted to social studies, science, art and music. But time for reading and math has received a substantial boost, according to a study that examined 349 of the nation's school systems. The report released yesterday by the Center on Education Policy shows that some school districts increased math and reading time by as much as 150 minutes a week, while cutting time for social studies, science, music and art by one-third.