Jump in Test Scores Shows Signs of Stalling

Board Questions Schools Chief Over Data

Prince George's County school board members grilled Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. in a wide-ranging briefing on student achievement Thursday afternoon that crystallized many of the academic challenges facing the school system.

Maryland's second-largest school system has made significant gains over the past five years on standardized exams, and its African American students are catching up to their white and Asian peers, but the data presented at the briefing in Upper Marlboro showed that the progress might have hit a plateau.

"The low-hanging fruit has been plucked. We've ridded our system of gross incompetence and dysfunction in most places," said board member Heather Iliff (District 2). "Now we're at the point of using the high ladders and the cherry pickers that are very expensive . . . at a time when we are reducing the budget."

The most jarring sign of the situation was the county's failure to get out of "corrective action" mandated by the state after years of low academic achievement. With its recent gains, the county looked poised to get off the state's watch list, but even though test scores climbed again this year, they didn't increase enough to meet the state's ever-rising standard.

Prince George's is now the only one of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions in corrective action. Baltimore, which had been on the watch list for years, was removed this year after posting adequate gains for two consecutive years. (Baltimore lags behind Prince George's in many academic categories but nevertheless met state standards.)

"The staff and the students did very well, but I am beginning to hear little comments, 'Oh, we're at the bottom; Baltimore is at the top,' " board member Pat Fletcher (District 3) said in a question to Hite.

"We have a graduating class of over 8,000," Hite responded. Baltimore's class was smaller, he said -- about 4,000 -- and making larger changes is more difficult. "But the progress we're making cannot go unnoticed."

His staff's presentation showed mixed results. The number of schools on a watch list for failing to meet state standards has dropped from a high of 81 in 2006 to 50 this year, but 37 schools failed to make standards for the first time this year. If they fail again next year, they will be added to the list.

Testing data showed numerous gains, but other issues raised worries. Although the percentage of elementary school students passing a state math exam has risen to 73.1 from 46.8 percent in 2004, there was no gain in the most recent year. The percentage of middle school students making the grade in math has risen to 49.9 percent from 30.8 percent, but it slid back from 50.2 percent last year.

The stagnant math scores were a contrast to reading scores, which rose from 75.8 percent last year to 77.2 percent this year in the elementary grades.

"It is clear by this data that math needs to become the emphasis of the school system moving forward," Hite said. Hite's strategy for improving achievement revolves around getting effective teachers, particularly in schools in neighborhoods struggling with poverty. He said the county has perhaps not made as much progress in doing that with math as it has with reading.

"Part of the anomaly you see with flat math in middle school has to do with some of the individuals who are teaching kids math," Hite said. He told a story of a visit to one class where students were plotting graphs and he asked them why they thought they were learning the subject.

"He said he was sure that it was going to be important later in life, but he didn't know why," Hite said. "It speaks to that point of highly effective teachers in front of students."

Prince George's has increased its percentage of what the state defines as a highly qualified teachers, with 82 percent of core academic subject classes taught by such teachers in the 2008-09 school year.