State’s teachers praise national overhaul of standards - baltimoresun.com

State’s teachers praise national overhaul of standards - baltimoresun.com

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Electrifying quotes from the Baltimore Sun Article:

"New tests will replace the Maryland State Assessments and the High School Assessments as soon as 2013, according to state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick."

"Grasmick said the standards will be more rigorous. Algebra will have to be taught by eighth grade; while most suburban school systems already do so, a much smaller percentage of city students learn algebra then."

What does this mean for the "Seven Keys" and the "80 by 2010" oops, make that "80 by 2014?" Will the glossy brochures have to be re-written? The videos re-made?

MCPS Expenditures and Educational Outcomes

In 2007, MCPS continued to top the state in Expenditure per Pupil, outspending Howard County by $1,415, beating Baltimore City by $1,273, and administering a knock-out to Caroline County by $3,612.

Howard was able to provide 73.4 Instruction Staff per Thousand, Baltimore City 72, and Caroline 69. MCPS gave us 70.5 Instruction Staff per Thousand.

Moving to Professional Support Staff per Thousand, MCPS managed 12, Howard 12.4, Baltimore City 10.5, and Caroline 10.7.

When it came to Instructional Assistants per Thousand, Howard had a whopping 24.2, Baltimore City 19.8, and Caroline 18.9. In comparison to Howard’s 24.2, MCPS scraped up 16.3.

Then again, MCPS is “leading with equity” and “closing the achievement gap” like no other jurisdiction. Is it?

The Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County hosts a number of reports, I have based on data from the State Department of Education that help us make an assessment of the efficacy of our tax dollars in the hands of MCPS.

Begin with a look at graduation rates through 2008 (the report can also be accessed here). Graduation rates for Hispanic and African American males are plummeting.

Thereafter, consider the “gap” in the third-grade reading scores between White and African American students on the third grade MSAs. Despite differing expenditures per pupil, the MCPS, Howard County, and Statewide third-grade reading score gap averages were essentially the same (the report can also be accessed here).

“MSA third-grade reading gap shrinks 22 percentage points,” shrieks a MCPS produced PowerPoint presentation. Once again, data available from the state, presented by this author shows that the gap is smaller or similar in other jurisdictions with smaller expenditure per pupil (the report can also be accessed here).

When it comes to gifted education, MCPS claims to identify an average of approximately 40% of its second graders as GT, with identification numbers that run the gamut from a low of about 17% to a high of over 87%. It is generally accepted that the national average is about 5%. The lowest MCPS figure is about 3-times the national average, while the highest is almost 17-times! Alas, that too seems to be a smoke-and-mirrors illusion bolstered by lower identification standards, gaming of the identification process, etc.

Let me end with a few thoughts:

Contact the president of a local university and you will get, at the very least, an acknowledgment. Contact the insular, isolated Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools and you will likely hear nothing.

The MCPS cost-per-pupil is the highest in the state...

There is absolutely no published accounting of how the additional dollars are spent by MCPS ….

There are no benchmarks, measures, levels, or trends that reflect how effectively these additional resources are used or what results they have achieved …

Don’t we owe it to OUR CHILDREN to make sure that OUR money is spent wisely, transparently and accountably on THEIR education?

Don’t we need leadership that can step up to the plate to answer our questions?

Don’t we need leadership that has the courage to make the right decisions, however unpopular?

Don’t we need leadership that is accessible to the public that pays his salary?

Whose Scores Are They Anyway?

Why Is MCPS Holding MSA Home Reports Until After the Start of the New School Year?

The scores are in and MCPS knows exactly how your child did on the MSAs (Maryland Statewide Assessment) last spring. As a matter of fact, they have most likely been spending most of the summer using MSA data as a means of placing your student into his or her classes this fall. If that is the case, then how come you are receiving the home report this week? Why is MCPS MSA data for individual students being withheld from you as parents and not being sent out until the middle of September?

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) Web site states that the testing vendor sends the scores for individual students to the local school systems and then the local school systems distribute individual scores to parents. MCPS distributes individual scores, or home reports as they are called, in September, after the new school year has already begun and your child’s classes and groupings have already been determined based on scores you have not seen. In some cases, you may even have received one of your child’s scores days before another child’s scores, simply because they go to different schools. So what exactly is the MCPS MSA Schedule for distribution to parents?

What about other Maryland counties? At least five other Maryland counties – Howard, Frederick, Anne Arundel, Prince Georges, and Baltimore, all provided their home reports to parents over the summer. Parents in these counties got to see their children’s scores before they went back to school; they knew why their children were placed in that advanced math or English class or were able to make the case if they weren’t. If this information is available in the summer, why is MCPS holding on to these reports and not providing them to its parents? Why aren’t they providing you with your own child’s test scores as soon as the scores are available? Where is the transparency MCPS likes to talk so much about? These results should be provided not only for the sake of the parents, but for the children who felt the pressure to perform on this test through those constant reminders of “get a good night’s sleep”, “eat a good breakfast”, and “don’t miss school”. Don’t the children deserve to see the results of their hard work?

With all of the stringent requirements and guidelines in place for MSA, why hasn’t MSDE instituted deadlines for the counties to return the home reports to parents, so that all Maryland parents can be informed of their child’s progress in a timely manner and be better advocates for their children’s education? Why is MCPS allowed to hold individual MSA data indefinitely? Nancy Grasmick, are you listening?

The Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland thanks this MCPS parent for submitting these comments to this blog. The author, while known to us, wishes to remain anonymous.

Jerry's Kids: A look at their "gap"

The MCPS students who just finished 8th grade in the 2008-09 school year are "Jerry's kids." Those are the kids that started with Superintendent Jerry Weast's "reforms" that are now being lauded in a book, "Leading for Equity." The book was recently reviewed by Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews.

In the review, Mathews said, "Weast is the Indiana Jones of this wild suburban adventure."

Let's take a look at the "equity" that "Indiana Jones Weast" has achieved.

Pictures speak louder than words and this week the Maryland State Assessment (MSA) test results were released.

So let's check in with "Jerry's kids". Here are graphs showing 8th grade MSA reading scores broken out by race for the MCPS middle schools that are part of the middle school consortium or middle school magnet programs. That is, these are the middle schools that have been the recipients of additional funding to close the gap. Take a look and see how "Jerry's kids" have done.

MCPS excellence: Slip Slidin' Away

Ten years ago Jerry Weast took over what was widely recognized to be the finest school system in the state. Today, a decade into Jerry’s plan to "Raise the Bar and Close the Gap", Montgomery County Public Schools has slid to second tier status (2nd quartile) among the 24 school systems in the State of Maryland. You wouldn’t get that impression reading the school system's press releases. But the facts, in the form of results on the Maryland School Assessment (MSA), tell the accurate and unbiased story.

The 2008-2009 school year results were released today. Overall MCPS ranked 8th out of the 24 school systems state wide. In Mathematics, MCPS ranked 10th , while Reading was 5th. Although MCPS leads the state in per pupil education spending, its educational results appear out of sync with that investment.

Take a look at the results for yourself. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that so many of our county teachers and administrators have chosen to raise their own children in Frederick and Howard County. Those folks in the know about quality schools are voting with their feet.
2009 Rank of School Systems on MSA

Middle School MSA Scores: Special Ed Testing to Blame, Weast Whines

July 21, 2009: Weast issues a press release with the following information:

"At the middle school level, 26 out of 38 schools met AYP—an overall success rate of 68 percent, compared with 86 percent in 2008. Three of the 12 schools not making AYP would have achieved it had the same process used in 2008 been used in 2009. The implementation of Modified Maryland School Assessments (Mod-MSAs) and the low pass rate (38.9 percent in reading and 23.1 percent in mathematics) on this new assessment likely contributed to the increased number of middle schools not meeting AYP in 2009."

Yet when the Report on the Phase-Out of the Secondary Learning Centers was finally released, earlier this year, it contained the following statements:

"Additionally, the Modified-Maryland School Assessment (Mod-MSA) which is designed for students whose regular coursework is modified significantly to address their disabilities, was not available from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE ) in the spring of 2008. The Mod-MSA will be administered for the first time in spring of 2009 for middle school students with disabilities. However, these students took the regular MSA which was not an appropriate assessment for reporting their outcomes."

So which is it? In case you haven't noticed, the special education students in the middle schools did extremely poorly on BOTH the MSA and the Mod-MSA.

Perhaps Jerry Weast would prefer that special education students not participate in any accountability testing at all!

The disability community can look specifically to SHIRLEY BRANDMAN, who voted to phase out the middle school secondary learning centers. You now see the fruits of her efforts. And, by the way, they are rotten.

Differentiated Instruction Doesn't Happen, MCPS Reports

When Superintendent Jerry Weast, and Board of Education members Nancy Navarro and Shirley Brandman moved full steam ahead with their plan to phase out and close the Secondary Learning Centers, parents of affected students were given lots of promises about how regular classroom teachers would be trained to provide "differentiated instruction" in order to meet the needs of students whose reading abilities could be two or more years below grade level.

Promises, Promises.

The Montgomery County Public Schools Office of Shared Accountability has now released their report on the evaluation of the phase out of the secondary learning centers. Page 14 of their report contains this electrifying statement:

"With the inclusion of the transition students, it was expected that teachers would need to provide more differentiated instruction (e.g., different activities, formats, or outcomes). Only 27% of the grade 6 classes and 27% of the grades 7-11 classes displayed any differentiated activities at any time during the lesson. Only 8% of the grade 6 classes and none of the grade 7-11 classes included differentiated activities throughout the lesson."

Even worse, knowing that the students in their classrooms did not have grade-level reading abilities, less than one third of classroom professionals responding to the OSA survey reported that their students had access to materials re-written at an appropriate reading level (page 15).

According to the OSA, "very little differentiation was observed in classrooms." (page 32)

And what was the outcome of the Weast-Navarro-Brandman plan?

Maryland School Assessment scores (MSA scores) tanked for these students. According to the report,

"Achievement of the transitioned students on standardized tests was weaker than that of students with similar disabilities. Their mean scores were lower than comparison students on the MAP-R reading test and on the MSA tests in Mathematics and reading. Also, a higher percentage of transitioned than comparison students scored at the basic level on each MSA test. (page 33).

It is time to end the experimentation with our students and make available a full continuum of special education options once more.

Lyda Astrove