The quality of Maryland public schools is getting better. That’s according to the star ratings released by the Maryland State Department of Education on Tuesday.

It’s the sixth year, and potentially the last year, of the state’s five-star scale ratings known as the Maryland School Report Card. Maryland education leaders are working on revamping how they evaluate schools and could start using a new system to analyze their 2025-26 school year performance.

Maryland education leaders said the current star system does not adequately describe the quality of a school, and does not reward schools that make progress with students during an academic year but still don’t get them to pass the state test.

And schools with large numbers of students living in poverty, in general, do not garner as many stars as schools with wealthier students.

“Quite frankly, our report card right now is too much of a proxy for poverty in our schools, and we need more factors that are going to help us differentiate,” said Josh Michael, the state school board president.

Maryland state schools Superintendent Carey Wright said the current system is “convoluted” and needs to be simplified so that local superintendents can more easily calculate a school’s rating. “What we’re trying to get to is a system that is more transparent, that is fairer, and that ... rewards growth,” Wright said.

The state school board will consider recommendations to improve the current star rating system next month.

For now, the star ratings show small gains from the last school year.

A presentation from the education department showed there was a small increase in the number of schools earning four or five stars. No schools increased their rating by more than one star. Middle school students, an official noted, were the most improved.

The number of stars each school is given is determined by academic achievement, progress in English language proficiency, graduation rates and more.

Geoff Sanderson, deputy state superintendent of accountability, said that 86% of schools earned three stars or more. That’s up from 83% of schools last year and 80% of schools the year before that. Those “modest gains” align with results from the state test, Sanderson noted.

Like the star ratings, this year’s results on the state test marked the third year in a row for improvement.

Middle schools, though, saw marked improvement. The number of middle schools earning three stars jumped by 11 percentage points, Sanderson said.

Of the 1,312 schools that received a rating, 569, or 43%, received four or five stars. Three-star ratings were most common, going to 555 schools.

Since last year, 123 schools lost a star and 193 schools gained a star. No schools increased by two stars, and just one school decreased by two stars.

In Central Maryland, Baltimore County had the most schools earning five stars; Howard County schools, on the other hand, had the highest average rating.

See how your school performed on the Maryland School Report Card with this searchable database. Click on the headers to sort the lists by school district, star rating and more.

Banner reporter Liz Bowie contributed to this story.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.