If a goal is easy to reach, what's the point? Credit Maryland's school reform effort for shunning the fast and facile road and choosing instead the steep and politically rocky path that leads to real change. Now, with the release of the latest results in the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), schools in virtually every jurisdiction in the state are showing a steady trend toward significant improvement.
The assessment program has had its share of critics, beginning with the first clumsy administration of the tests four years ago. But problems were to be expected: These tests are not the run-of-the-mill multiple-choice exams that don't really scratch the surface of the complex process we call education. Instead, they represent a drastically new approach to achievement testing. MSPAP focuses on schools, not individual students, and it compares results to a set standard rather than to a bell curve based on the performance of other students and schools. The content of the tests address "higher-order thinking" -- problem-solving, decision-making and reasoning skills.
The early scores were dismal; even now, only 35 percent of the state's students are scoring "satisfactory" or better. But there has been steady improvement. The state's long-term goal is for 70 percent of students to score "satisfactory" or better by the year 2000. If it achieves that goal, or even comes close, Maryland will almost certainly be among the nation's leaders in preparing its young people for the next century, giving the state an enormous asset.
The MSPAP results also contain another positive story -- the steady progress of students in Baltimore City. True, city schools carry enormous burdens, but it's good to recognize that trends are now headed in the right direction. Baltimore City's performance ranks at the bottom of Maryland's jurisdictions, but scores in city schools have improved over last year in almost every category. Among third graders, for instance, the number of children performing satisfactorily in math rose to 12.4 percent this year, from 7.1 percent in 1993.
Maryland is now considered a pace-setter in education reform -- in large part because it was willing to risk the embarrassment of setting standards that would take years to meet. Across the board, from more affluent and higher-performing jurisdictions like Howard and Montgomery counties to poor ones like Baltimore City, schools have telling evidence of their successes and failures -- the benchmarks that are essential reference points on the path to excellence.