For the fifth year in a row, Howard County posted the best performance on the state's annual school report card -- remaining the only school district to meet state standards in 13 categories of pupil performance.
Overall, the Howard school system scored seven excellent and six satisfactory marks in the annual Maryland School Performance Program Report, which was released yesterday.
This year's state report evaluates the performance of Maryland's 24 school districts during the 1993-1994 school year in areas such as pupils' basic skills, attendance rates and promotion rates.
But Howard still did not pass any of the 18 categories in a new statewide testing program that assesses how well students use what they are taught in the classroom. Such tests do not count as part of the state report card until 1996, and Howard school officials said yesterday that they're optimistic that their system will meet the requirements then.
School Superintendent Michael E. Hickey said the county's high scores on the report card result from years of changes in curricula and teacher training in the 36,000-student school district.
In 1990, the first year the state issued the report card, Howard County earned only one excellent mark, six satisfactory marks and one "not met" mark. Other categories have been added through the years.
"I'm very pleased we did well again this year, and we met all of the 13 criterion standards," Dr. Hickey said.
"We always like to see all of them in the excellent categories, and several of them are very close to being excellent."
Said Susan Cook, newly elected school board chairwoman, said, "It says a lot about what our system is doing. Our teachers are working very hard, and our students are working hard as well, and it's paying off."
Howard did not release the results of the state report card on a school-by-school basis as some other systems -- such as Carroll County -- did yesterday. Leslie Walker-Bartnick, the school system's testing coordinator, said such results would not be released for several weeks -- until after officials have studied and processed the data.
The ninth-grade functional writing test was the only category in which the county school system slipped a notch. The percentage of students who passed the writing test fell 3 percentage points to 93.4 percent last school year from the previous year, earning Howard County a satisfactory mark. School systems need a 96 percent passing rate to get an excellent mark.
But all of the state's school systems slipped on the writing test -- some as many as 10 percentage points -- raising the question of whether the drop might be attributed to a problem with the test.
Local school officials weren't concerned about the dip, saying it could be a one-year fluctuation.
"If it's the start of a trend, we need to do something about that and look at the curriculum or the way the curriculum is being taught," Dr. Hickey said.
Among the highlights of Howard's portion of the state report card:
* The Howard school attendance rate continued to climb. Last year's attendance rate was 94.9 percent at the middle and high school levels, nearly two percentage points higher than for the 1991-1992 school year. "There's been emphasis on improving attendance," said Lynn Benton, head of the Howard County PTA Council. "The principals have been working on it."
* Fewer county high school graduates entered a four-year college last school year, 61 percent compared with 62.3 percent in the 1992-1993 school year and 61.5 percent in the 1991-1992 school year.
* More high school graduates chose to work full time and attend school part time. A little more than 3 percent chose that route last school year, 1 percentage point more than the 2.3 percent students who worked and went to school the previous year.
* The county spent $6,457 on each student last school year -- the second highest per-pupil spending in the state after Montgomery County, which spent $7,544 on each of its 113,000 students. Montgomery earned six excellent and five satisfactory marks and received two "not met" categories. The statewide average for per-pupil spending last school year was $5,978.
* Howard, at 7.7 percent, had the second-lowest percentage of students on free and reduced lunches. Montgomery had the lowest, 6.7 percent. The statewide average was 29.2 percent.
* Howard had the fifth-highest teacher-student ratio: 63 teachers for every 1,000 students compared with the state's average of 59.8 teachers for every 1,000 students. Garrett County, with 68.3 teachers for every 1,000 students, led the state, followed by Wicomico, Talbott and Kent counties.
* Like every other school district, the county did not meet any of the standards in the new Maryland School Performance Assessment Program, a trial series of tests for third- , fifth- and eighth-graders.
The so-called "criterion-referenced" tests assess students' knowledge on reading, math, social studies, science, writing and language use. The tests still are two years away from being included as a formal part of the state report card on school performance.