Students in other counties outpace Montgomery's on MSAs | Washington ExaminerFrom Calvert County to Howard County, students in Maryland's outlying towns and suburbs are outperforming those who attend the vaunted Montgomery County school system and those in neighboring Prince George's County.An analysis of recently released results from the 2009 Maryland Standardized Assessment, commonly called the MSA, shows that Howard County's third and eighth graders more often scored in the highest category than Montgomery County students in both reading and math. The tests are given each year to students in grades three through eight and are scored "basic," "proficient" or "advanced."
Calvert County, with 17,000 students on a peninsula southeast of Prince George's County, fared better than Montgomery among third graders, especially in math. Nearly 42 percent of Calvert's youngest testers scored advanced, and only 7 percent scored basic. In Montgomery, 34 percent scored advanced while 13 percent scored basic.
According to the Maryland State Department of Education, third graders scoring basic in math likely cannot "write simple equations and simple inequalities," or "determine value of mixed currency."...
Hate to be cynical here, but have you looked at the make-up of Howard and Calvert Counties and compared the current student populations to Montgomery lately? This isn't the MCPS that I went to over 20 years ago, but Howard and Calvert probably look a lot like MCPS then whereas the MCPS population has changed dramatically and we are dealing with a very different socio-economic situation. Rather than look at the whole, pull out the demographics, I hate to be rude, but that is the truth of the matter. Closing the gap is what Weast has been striving for because the make-up of this county is changing; if you live in Bethesda you are living in a bubble as the rest of the county is very different from you. I have to disagree about placing that much stock in a standardized test anyway because the smart kids know that by they time they get to 8th grade that the score reflects on the teacher and the school not them, so there is little to no incentive to do well... Plus, do we want to be teaching to a test? I thought that was something this coalition was against? Now it is important to compare test scores? Can't have it both ways.
ReplyDeleteThe Parents'Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland seeks to achieve the goals of coherent, content-rich curriculum standards; high expectations combined with timely remediation and acceleration; a wider range of educational options for parents and children; greater transparency and accountability; and meaningful community input.
ReplyDeleteThe PCMC of MD does not have a position on teaching to tests.