Why have Maryland’s school test scores stalled?

No one was popping champagne bottles at the release of Maryland’s spring test score results.

Proficiency for public school students in grades three through eight rose less than one percentage point over last year in both math and English. This year’s results on the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program show 51.7% of students were proficient in English language arts and 27.1% were proficient in math.

The scores, which were announced last week, come after the state has spent billions more for the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the landmark education initiative that began in 2022. Educators and experts say Maryland has changed its approach to the teaching of reading and math and progress is likely to come in slow and steady gains. In addition, they believe the effects of pandemic school closures linger.

The Blueprint projected 5 percentage point gains for this past school year, and 10 percentage point gains over the past two years.

Instead, Maryland saw only a 3.3 percentage point increase in two years.

“I think that when those goals were set, they were very aspirational,” said William “Brit” Kirwan, who lead the commission that produced the Blueprint. They were designed, he said, to set high expectations. The Blueprint was estimated to increase spending on education by $5.2 billion by 2030, but Gov. Wes Moore has reduced some of those increases.

“I think we hadn’t realized how much work had to be done in math and in literacy,” Kirwan said.

Some school districts began moving toward teaching phonics-based science of reading two years ago, Kirwan said, and those policies are not yet showing a result.

For some people, it can be frustrating to watch school funding rise without a comparable surge in achievement.

Brigid Howe, a parent leader in Montgomery County, acknowledges that much of districts’ funding is tied up in personnel costs and strained by inflation. Still, it’s hard for her to see only slow improvements across the board, while Black and Hispanic students’ scores remain stubbornly below those of their white and Asian peers.

“With all the investments made in the last few years, you’d expect to see a little more growth and to see some of the gaps shrink. And they just haven’t,” she said. “Are we trying the right tactics? Are there investments that are higher return that we could be making to address achievement for all kids, but also specifically to shrink that gap?”

In Prince George’s County, which ranks near the bottom of all Maryland school systems in both English and math, the new superintendent is clear on the district’s need for improvement.

The district’s English proficiency rate rose less than one percentage point to 38.9%. In math, 13.7% of students are considered proficient, up from 13.1% the previous year.

“Our data communicates our most significant needs remain with our Hispanic, multilingual, and special education populations. These students demand urgent coordinated action as we work to raise achievement for all students,” Superintendent Shawn Joseph wrote in a Monday message to families.

Maryland State School Superintendent Carey Wright, who led Mississippi schools to remarkable gains on national tests using the science of reading, is attempting to replicate those results here. Next fall the state will deploy reading coaches to improve teachers’ understanding of the science of reading.

State officials will try to persuade the General Assembly to give them enough money for math coaches as well.

The state has changed the standards that describe what must be taught in schools at certain grades in both math and English. Those changes are just beginning in math, which is a subject Maryland students have lagged far behind on for at least the past decade.

“These are very substantial changes, and with that kind of change you don’t get the movement we had hoped,” Kirwan said.

To be sure, Maryland has made some steady progress since the Blueprint money began flowing in 2022. Over that period, test scores are up about 6 percentage points. Those gains translate into 60,000 more students reading on grade level, Kirwan said.

Maryland’s modest gains are similar to those seen in states across the nation, said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “The story across the country is very slow progress,” he said.

One of the major factors, he said, is that the percentage of students who are chronically absent — missing at least 18 days of school a year — continues to be far higher than before the pandemic.

Blame rests on those who kept schools closed during the pandemic, he said. Maryland kept kids learning at home for about a year and a half, longer than nearly all other states.

“We are still talking about a cohort of kids who got crushed. I am not surprised that we haven’t made much progress,” he said. “The Blueprint money and the federal money may have helped a little, but it wasn’t enough.”

Maryland elementary and middle school students will take a different test next spring, which will mean measuring gains in academic achievement will be more difficult until there is another couple of years of test data. In the meantime, the state will have to rely on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test given every two years in fourth and eighth grade.

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.