After test scores, educators will fine-tune

Although many classes advance, some subgroups fall short

Friday, July 24, 2009

The Maryland State Department of Education this week released Maryland School Assessment scores and information on whether schools met testing goals, known as adequate yearly progress, for student groups and subgroups based on race, special education, low-income students and others.

All of St. Mary's public elementary schools met those goals, but three out of four middle schools came up short. Overall, though, students at all of the middle schools posted gains in test scores, especially in math.

Factors such as full-day kindergarten, a robust assessment and data-tracking system and curriculum that is aligned from one grade to the next have contributed to large gains in scores since the tests were introduced six years ago, school officials said.

"Overall, our kids are doing very, very well," Superintendent Michael Martirano said Thursday.

Last year all of the county's public schools met the goals. However, this year Spring Ridge, Leonardtown and Margaret Brent middle schools fell short in certain subgroups of students.

"It's like I tell the kids, it is one measure, it is not the only measure of the things we are doing," Margaret Brent Middle School Principal Mike Egan said Wednesday.

Margaret Brent Middle School missed its reading and math goals for special education students.

Spring Ridge Middle School missed goals in four subgroups — African-Americans, low-income and special education students did not meet the reading goals. Special education students also missed math goals.

Leonardtown Middle School also struggled with its special education scores this year, failing to make its reading goal for that subgroup of students.

Egan and other principals and school administrators will be meeting with staff soon to pour over the data and address why the special education population did not meet its testing goals.

"We're going to make adjustments, we're never complacent," Egan said.

New to this year's results is data on what is known as the "modified MSA," which was given for the first time last year to some special education students in middle schools. Previously, those students would have taken the regular MSA with accommodations, which could include extra time to take the test or teacher assistance with reading questions.

The modified test actually proved to be harder for students than the regular test with accommodations, Linda Dudderar, chief academic officer, said. That impacted results and might have caused middle schools to miss making goals for special education, she said. "It certainly didn't help us," Dudderar said. "Our students with special needs performed better taking the regular test with accommodations than those that took the modified test."

"We were surprised to see that," Martirano said. He said school systems could not appeal special education results in middle school as in past years.

Other Maryland school jurisdictions experienced similar results. Two Calvert public middle schools failed to meet goals in special education and/or low-income subgroups. Five middle schools and one elementary school in Charles failed to make some goals, mostly in the areas of special education and low-income student groups.

Making gains from pass rates in the 90s to the 100 percent proficient that is called for by 2014 will be difficult, Martirano said, adding that the "high-hanging fruit" is always the hardest to reach.

Scores must increase incrementally year to year and meet what are called annual measurable objectives for the reading and math tests.

The path to those objectives "is very steep, which will cause more schools not to make" the state goals in the future, Martirano said. "It's just the reality of it." All of the schools in St. Mary's are still high-performing schools, even if goals were not met in some areas, he said.

"It certainly does make it challenging because the bar raises every year and the level of expectation raises every year," Egan said.

Schools also look at cohort results, tracking a group of students from one grade to the next. That can be deceiving, too, because of mobility and other changes to individual students. "We have more and more kids under stress" from the economy as parents lose jobs and struggle with making ends meet, Martirano said. Also, many children move from one school to another because of the military or family issues.

The difficulty of the tests varies from year to year and from grade to grade, Dudderar said. This, too, can lead to fluctuations in scores.

Dudderar said overall she is encouraged by the results and will be meeting with several schools to discuss adjustments in teaching strategies for particular subgroups of students.

Even at the middle school level, some of the data stood out, including math scores. In just a few years St. Mary's middle schools' math scores have risen from the bottom quarter of Maryland school jurisdictions to within the top five, Dudderar said.

The number of middle school students scoring advanced — the highest of three levels — on the math tests is also very high compared to other jurisdictions in the state.

"We try to do everything we can ... to provide the best instruction possible," Egan said. He said he and his staff at Margaret Brent Middle School "make the best attempt we can to focus on individual student needs."

St. Mary's public school officials said schools are still committed to the elimination of the achievement gap.

"Academic gaps remain between our student groups, but we are making significant progress in our efforts toward their elimination," Martirano said.

African-American students posted a 13 percent increase in sixth grade reading compared to a consistent index for their white counterparts. In eighth grade, black students earned a 17 percent increase in math, compared to a 6.7 percent increase for white students. "The gap is closing while most students are seeing improvement in performance," Martirano said.

However, at the elementary level the gap between black and white students remained about the same or even widened at certain grade levels. "You've got to look at the student, you can't just look at the numbers," Egan said.

jyeatman@somdnews.com