Almost every single grade made improvements in every single subject on Maryland’s standardized tests to assess students’ math, reading, science and social studies skills.
English Language Arts continues to be Maryland’s strongest content area. The same can’t be said for math, where just over a quarter of students are considered proficient, but test-takers still managed to move the needle.
Last week, state leaders highlighted how students fared on the exam known as the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program, or MCAP. The scores were officially released Tuesday afternoon.
Their takeaways included girls outsmarting the boys in English, science of reading being credited for the rise in English scores and fourth graders being the only grade that didn’t improve in English.
The annual assessment tests students in grades 3-8, as well as some high schoolers, in English, math and science.
State Superintendent Carey Wright told reporters last week that this is the third year in a row they’ve seen improvements with 50.8% of test-takers considered proficient in English, up from 47.9% in 2023. Ten school districts saw at least a five-percentage-point jump. Though the increases are incremental, it’s still movement in the right direction, the state superintendent told reporters last week.
“I think that what the teachers are doing around the science of reading … is finally starting to really take ground, and we’re continuing to see the progress that we want to see,” said Wright.
She’s referring to the body of research that supports science-backed instruction to produce effective readers. Wright, who’s credited for significantly improving Mississippi’s English scores by pushing the science of reading, made it mandatory for all Maryland districts to use. She’s deploying coaches this school year to classrooms around the state to help.
Maryland READS, a nonprofit Wright was once part of that advocates for improved reading in the state’s public schools, applauded Wright’s investment in reading but called for more to be done. In an emailed statement, the group said Mississippi’s legislature dedicated about $15 million annually to literacy coaching and support.
“If Maryland is serious about a reading comeback, the State must do more than hire the right superintendent,” the nonprofit wrote. “Our Legislature must invest real, sustained resources in literacy — just as Mississippi did."
The percentage of Maryland students who are proficient in English increased by a couple of percentage points. Last year’s fourth graders were the only grade level to drop in their scores. They went from 49.3% proficiency to 48.4%. That happens to be the cohort of kids who were in kindergarten when schools shut down because of the pandemic. But Wright isn’t worried, given how small the change is.
Every demographic showed improvement in the subject. Multilingual learners scored the lowest among the student groups, but they still went up from 10.7% to 11.1%.
Another notable highlight is how far ahead the girls were from the boys. It was nearly a nine-percentage-point difference, with 55.2% proficiency for girls and 46.5% for boys. It was a 10.1 difference the year prior.
While Worcester County had the best English score, with nearly 70% considered proficient, Dorchester County showed the most improvement, climbing from 33.7% to 41.3%.
In math, only 26.5% of students earned a proficient score.
“Key takeaway that continues to be alarming to us would be the difference that we’re seeing in mathematics compared to English Language Arts,” Geoff Sanderson, Maryland State Department of Education’s chief of accountability, said last week.
Overall, math proficiency was an improvement by 2.4 points. Maryland students weren’t always bad at math and educators across the state and country are still figuring out what went wrong.
For now, the state has updated its math standards, but it’s too soon to see the impact in this year’s test scores.
The good news is that the scores are on the rise. Each district made some improvement, even if it was by only .2 percentage points, like in Calvert County. Worcester again had the highest proficiency rate. The Eastern Shore district made the biggest gains, going from 39.3% to 47.7%.
Math improvements can be seen in each grade level and math subject. For instance, the geometry test-takers rose by 5.6 percentage points.
Still, there’s plenty of room for growth. Sanderson said the state “really needs to see acceleration within this area.”
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.
Comments
Welcome to The Banner's subscriber-only commenting community. Please review our community guidelines.