New Individual Targets Set For Each School and Student Group
For the 2013 school year, 87.6 percent of all elementary students and 82.5 percent of middle school students scored proficient or advanced on the Maryland School Assessment (MSA) for Reading, while 88.9 percent of all elementary students and 80.0 percent of middle school students scored proficient or advanced on the MSA for Mathematics. “Our slight decline in scores is mirrored across the state and is attributable to our aggressive transitioning to the Common Core State Standards,” stated Dr. Michael J. Martirano, Superintendent of Schools. “We have predicted that scores on an assessment that is misaligned with our current curriculum will decline.”
Elementary school scores dipped 4.5 percent in Reading and 1.5 percent in Mathematics from the previous year, yet remain above the Maryland state average. Middle school scores showed slighter declines; .6 percent in Reading and 3.3 percent in Mathematics from the previous year. The table below reflects the aggregate percentage of St. Mary’s County Public Schools (SMCPS) students at the elementary and middle school level scoring proficient or advanced compared to all students in the state of Maryland.
Individual student score reports are currently available at each school. For more detailed information, the MSDE website www.mdreportcard.org chronicles all assessment results.
The U.S. Department of Education announced last year that Maryland was one of eight new states granted flexibility from some of the long-standing requirements of No Child Left Behind. Under the flexibility plan, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) set Annual Measurable Objectives (AMOs) on a trajectory toward 2017, at which time each individual school is expected to reduce its percentage of non-proficient students by half for each subgroup as well as for all students.
At the same time the goals were being reset, Maryland is moving from the Maryland State Curriculum, on which the assessments are based, to the Maryland Common Core State Standards (MCCSS). “With the Annual Measurable Objectives established last year and centered on an assessment aligned to an outgoing curriculum, we will balance our emphasis on this one data point, amongst all the student achievement information we gather throughout the year,” stated James Scott Smith, Acting Assistant Superintendent of Instruction for SMCPS. Dr. Jeffrey Maher, Executive Director of Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development commented, “We will closely examine the results of the MSA, as it does give us longitudinal data at the student level, but balance this with the concrete expectation that all our schools are fully transitioned to and implementing the new Common Core Curriculum.&rdq
