Washingtonpost.com: Maryland Test Scores
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 10, 1998; Page M1
Montgomery County rose from sixth place to fourth in this year's ranking of Maryland's 24 school systems on the statewide assessment test. The county also can claim three of the state's four highest performing elementary schools including repeat champion Somerset Elementary and the two highest performing middle schools.
The improvement reflects the county's efforts to raise achievement on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), officials said. The exam, given to third-, fifth- and eighth-graders in the spring, measures how well a school is doing overall in reading, writing, language usage, math, science and social studies.
Despite the progress, the county's composite score inched up only 2.5 percentage points over last year with 55.2 percent of students hitting satisfactory levels, compared with a statewide average of 44 percent. The incremental gain reflects how difficult it is to advance a large, diverse system, administrators said. Montgomery is the state's second largest district, with 128,000 students, increasing numbers of whom are poor and do not speak English as a primary language.
Last year's No. 6 ranking rankled officials in a system that prides itself on being among the best in the nation. This year, like last year, school officials hasten to point out that combined, the three systems ranked ahead of Montgomery Howard, Harford and Carroll counties do not approach Montgomery's enrollment.
Indeed, they say, of the Maryland jurisdictions with 70,000 or more students, Montgomery leads the pack.
"This is a huge system undergoing a renaissance in academics," spokesman Brian Porter said. "Our goal is to maintain steady incremental progress so that over time we will have a very firm foundation within all of our schools, not just some of them."
Porter noted that for some parents, the progress is "not fast enough." But he and other school officials said change takes time.
In fact, Montgomery saw more schools than any other single jurisdiction 29 meet the state standard of 70 percent or more students scoring satisfactory or higher on the MSPAP. But that still means that only 19 percent of the county's 153 elementary and middle schools met the standard.
Still, there is cause for cheer. Marlene Hartzman, director of educational accountability, noted that last year the state recognized 26 county schools for improved performance. This year, it is 51.
Over the past year, Montgomery officials have redoubled efforts to raise MSPAP scores, which historically had not been a school system priority. The county has its own performance assessment program tailored to the curriculum. But now administrators are working to ensure that students do well on both sets of exams.
"I'm pleased that at last our county is taking seriously the need to do well on the MSPAP," said school board member Mona M. Signer (Rockville-Potomac). "For a long time, there were people on the staff that said it was not an important test. But the fact is we have to show we can do well when we compare ourselves with other school systems, and not just on our own tests."
Given over four days in the spring, the MSPAP exam requires groups of students to work together to solve problems or complete tasks and then asks students individually to write short essays explaining how they carried out the task and why they did it that way.
For the second year in a row, Somerset Elementary in Chevy Chase posted the highest MSPAP performance in the state, with 90 percent of students scoring satisfactory or above on the test.
Principal Alfred Sklarew attributed his school's high mark to a rigorous instructional program, consistent from grade to grade; students who come "ready to learn with a tremendous amount of support from parents"; and an environment that focuses not just on academics but on "the child as a whole."
Behind Somerset in the rankings were third-place Cold Spring Elementary in Potomac, and fourth-place Burning Tree in Bethesda. The county boasted the top performing middle school, Cabin John Middle School, and the No. 2 performer, Pyle Middle in Bethesda.
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