Montgomery County students made slight progress in reading and math as they continued to score above statewide averages, according to standardized test results released Tuesday.
District leaders will be parsing these results to figure out whether recent changes to academic programs and curricula are paying off in Maryland’s largest school system.
“We are far from finished, but this is really encouraging progress. We see clear and steady improvement in our proficiency across the board,” Superintendent Thomas Taylor said in a statement.
The annual exam, called the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program, tests students in grades 3–8 and some high schoolers in English, math and science. Students score a 1 through 4 on the assessments, with the top two levels considered proficient.
How did Montgomery County students do in English?
Roughly 58.5% of students are considered proficient on the English language arts test. That’s compared to 51.7% statewide.
The district’s most notable growth — a 3-percentage-point jump — came in fifth grade. Sixth-grade English was the district’s sore spot, with students posting a decline of nearly 2 percentage points.
For the past two years, students in pre-K through fifth grade have been learning from a new reading curriculum, called Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts. Although educators have mixed opinions on the rollout, district leaders said they expected it to trigger growth in test scores. The fifth-grade scores could be seen as a sign of success.
What about math?
Math scores also saw slight growth, though the subject remains a struggle for many students.
About 36.9% of Montgomery County students are considered proficient in math, an improvement of 1.2 percentage points from last year.
Statewide, only 27.1% of students are proficient in the subject.
Montgomery County saw a surge of improvement in Algebra II, a high school math course, but the growth at other levels was more muted.
What were the top-performing schools?
Cold Spring Elementary dominated in English and math.
The Potomac school is in many ways set up for success. Few of its students come from low-income families, and it employs many experienced teachers.
Poolesville High and Winston Churchill High in Potomac posted strong scores in 10th-grade English. At both of these well-regarded campuses, more than 90% of students showed proficiency on the test.
At the other end of the spectrum, roughly 42% of John F. Kennedy High students scored proficient on the 10th-grade English assessment. It’s still an improvement from last year, when just 36.9% of students were proficient.
Where does MCPS need to improve?
Wide gaps between student demographic groups plague the district.
In math, 13.6% of students with disabilities achieved proficiency, compared to 40.5% of their nondisabled peers. More troubling is that there wasn’t year-over-year growth for students with disabilities.
Children from low-income families and those who are learning English also continue to struggle on the standardized tests.
Persistent gaps among racial groups didn’t narrow, either.
How about science?
Only fifth and eighth graders take the science assessment. Roughly 40% of Montgomery County test-takers scored proficient in the subject.
Once again, MCPS students performed better than their peers statewide. About 32.4% of fifth graders and 30.9% of eighth graders hit proficiency standards in science.
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