The Baltimore Sun reports that less than one-half of Maryland’s students passed PARCC’s math and English language arts assessments.
Three years after Maryland began to hold public school students to higher standards, results of English and math assessments released Tuesday show students have made only slight progress and less than half statewide passed the tests.
In grades three through eight, 41 percent of students passed the English test, while only a third passed the math assessment. The pass rate for English rose slightly, from 38.7 percent to 40.6 percent. The percentage of students passing math dropped slightly, by less than 1 percentage point, compared to a year ago. The test is called the Partnership for Assessments of Career and College Readiness, or PARCC.
About half of Maryland 10th-graders passed the PARCC English test and 36.5 percent of those students who took Algebra I passed. State officials plan to require successful completion of those tests as a condition for graduation, but haven’t yet decided what the score should be.
What is to blame? The test? The standards? Nope, privilege or lack thereof…
“More privileged students tend to do better at a more accelerated rate,” said school board member David Steiner. “That is a problem of school systems across the nation.”
Baltimore City and Baltimore County students scored below the state average. In the city, only 15 percent of students passed the English test and 11.9 percent passed the math. The pass rate in Baltimore County went down in elementary and middle school math by 1.6 percentage points, with 30.3 percent of students passing. In English, passing rates improved by 1.4 percentage points to 36.5 percent.
Forget the fact that students outside of these urban areas who have “privilege” are still failing. It could not possibly be a problem with the assessment or the standards.
The Baltimore Sun hits it right on the head, three years into these standards and these students are only showing “slight” progress which is still failing.
But Common Core is the silver bullet that is going to turn around all that ails public education.
Read the whole article here.
Lisa M says
I’m from MD. It’s ridiculous that MD is still holding on to this nonsense. The Gov was elected in part because he vowed to get rid of Common Bore and CCRAP, but he failed to come through with his campaign promise. Instead, he has let Finn and Smarick continue with this nonsense by appointing them to positions at MSDE. The Gov has also pushed for vouchers (BOOST is what it’s called) with the backing of Finn and Smarick. The ONLY thing the test scores show are that areas of high poverty have lower scores. The money that is spent on this garbage could be put to better use IN THE SCHOOLS! like having guidance counselors, school nurses, wrap around services. Nope, the once great state of MD will continue down this path of money mismanagement at the expense of it’s children. REFUSE the test (we have no opt out in MD)!
smehiel says
Our grand kids are being home schooled. They would be in northern Baltimore County schools if not. We help out with financial support when needed since their mom can’t work and teach, too. Thankful that they are doing this.