With Success of Tests, Schools Raise Goals
Focus Shifts to Top Level of Performance

By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 29, 2006

As student proficiency on Maryland's statewide test nears 100 percent at dozens of high-performing elementary schools in the Washington suburbs, some schools are looking at a new, more ambitious goal: raising the share of students who are more than proficient.

More than three-quarters of Maryland elementary students rated proficient or better on the 2006 Maryland State Assessment, a battery of tests in reading and math given to students in grades 3 through 8. But just one-quarter rated advanced, the highest of three performance levels on the test. Student work is grouped into three categories: basic, proficient and advanced.

Proficiency on the test is the ultimate goal set by No Child Left Behind, the federal mandate that school systems attain 100 percent proficiency on statewide exams by 2014. To meet incremental goals between now and then, schools must attain a standard called "adequate yearly progress." Again, the key measure is proficiency.

But in the high-scoring schools of Potomac and Severna Park and Bethesda, proficiency is presumed. At Wayside Elementary in Potomac, for example, no more than four children at any grade level failed to rate proficient on the test this spring.

"It's expected that everybody make proficiency," said Yong-Mi Kim, principal of Wayside. "But where do we go from there?"

For many parents and teachers, the goal now becomes one of moving individual students from that middle level into the highest level, advanced.

Among all 448 elementary schools in eight Washington area counties that had complete test results on the MSA, the share of students who rated advanced in 2006 ranged from a high of 72 percent at Cold Spring Elementary in Potomac to a low of 1 percent at Thomas Claggett Elementary in District Heights.

At the top of that list, comparing proficiency rates would serve little purpose. But sorting schools -- and counties -- according to advanced performance yields a broad range of results. Four Washington area counties -- Howard, Calvert, Anne Arundel and Montgomery -- can now say that at least one-third of their elementary students rate advanced on the MSA. In three other counties -- St. Mary's, Charles and Frederick -- about one-quarter of elementary students scored at that level. In Prince George's, about one-eighth of elementary students are rated advanced.

Comparatively few students attained the top tier of performance when the test debuted in 2003; three years later, advanced performance still eludes many students in the middle grades. But the goal of proficiency is now largely met among elementary schools in broad swaths of the Washington suburbs, and for many school administrators it is no longer enough.

"Advanced is kind of proficient for us," said Liz Gebelein, vice principal of Mount Harmony Elementary School in Owings, where 61 percent of students rated advanced on the 2006 MSA. "Proficient, I feel like I've failed."

Proficiency on the MSA signals that a student is performing more or less at grade level. But advanced performance is seen as a gateway to advanced math in the middle grades and to Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate study in high school. A student doing proficient work in third-grade math, for example, might be expected to write a simple equation or count mixed currency. A student rated advanced is already dabbling in plane geometry and simple probability.

"They're the kids who are going to go into AP," said Amy DiSabatino, principal of William B. Wade Elementary in Waldorf.

Wade Elementary has had success on the MSA not just with all students but also with its substantial black population, one of several demographic subgroups under scrutiny in the federal mandate. Thirty-six of 68 black students tested in fifth-grade reading this spring rated advanced.

Up to now, the goal of advanced performance on the MSA has been largely overshadowed by the push for proficiency, especially among the subgroup populations of special education and limited English proficiency. That goal -- particularly in special education -- will continue to loom large in 2007 and beyond, as schools struggle simply to make adequate progress from one year to the next. But school system leaders say they also will be steadily raising expectations for how many students reach the highest performance level on the statewide test.

"I know we have delivered the message, 'Don't be satisfied with proficient,' " said Frieda Lacey, deputy superintendent of Montgomery schools.