Students in Frederick County and across Maryland showed improvement in English, but continued to struggle with math on 2022 test scores, the first set of state data released since the pandemic began.
The Maryland State Department of Education on Tuesday released results from last spring's standardized tests, which were administered to all students in grades 3 through 8, as well as any student in Algebra I or English 10.
The numbers showed that while English scores had rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, math scores had not. In Frederick County and across the state, the vast majority of students did not demonstrate math proficiency, which had been declining among elementary and middle schoolers even prior to school closures.
Frederick County students performed much better than the statewide average on all measures. The results showed that 53% of local third through eighth graders earned proficient marks on their English Language Arts (ELA) tests, compared to an average of 44% statewide.
Meanwhile, 69% of local English 10 scored proficient, compared to 53% of students statewide.
Locally, 31% of elementary and middle schoolers demonstrated math proficiency, compared to 22% statewide.
And 25% of local Algebra I students demonstrated proficiency, compared to 14% statewide.
Most students' math scores improved from the fall of 2021, but were still significantly lower than their 2019 scores.
Just 7% of eighth graders statewide were proficient in math — an improvement from the Fall 2021 rate of 3%, but lower than the 2019 rate of 13%.
State Superintendent of Schools Mohammed Choudhury wrote in a news release that the results would be addressed "with urgency."
"Even as we begin to return to pre-pandemic outcomes, our latest MCAP results underscore that normal is not good enough, especially for our historically underserved students,” he said.
A more detailed dataset will be available on the Maryland Report Card website by the end of February, according to the news release. That will show a county-by-county breakdown of test scores by grade band, race, ethnicity and more.
Follow Jillian Atelsek on Twitter: @jillian_atelsek
(5) comments
“Frederick County students performed much better than the statewide average on all measures.” 👍🏻
Call me crazy, but perhaps if they did away with the "common core" math and went back to teaching math the way it makes sense, the scores would improve. The way they are teaching it makes no sense and parents can't help because it's not the way they were taught. We've turned a simple 2+2 into a multi step process.
Agreed, and the ALEKS math software further confuses students.
[thumbup]
What would be considered good scores?
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