The Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) was not designed to pat any school system on the back. Does Howard County, the state's highest-performing jurisdiction, really want to boast that only half its students performed satisfactorily in the latest round of testing? But boasting is not the goal of this linchpin of school reform; the aim is substantive change that moves all Maryland schools closer to excellence.
By that measure -- progress toward an ultimate goal -- Baltimore City schools can take heart. Scores are moving up. There is still a long way to go, but schools are headed in the right direction. In all but two categories -- writing tests for third and eighth graders -- scores improved over the previous year, and in some cases the jump was substantial. Among third graders, 12.4 percent of students performed satisfactorily in 1994, up from 7.1 percent the year before.
Accountability is the watchword of school reform, and the MSPAP is an important part of holding schools accountable. Five years ago, the new tests met with much criticism and almost universal grumbling among teachers. Now, both the content and the process have been refined, and teachers and students are more comfortable with the administration of tests that are radically different from traditional multiple-choice exams. Rather than focusing on rote learning, as standard tests do, the MSPAP assesses the "higher order skills" like reasoning and decision-making that are essential tools for success in life.
Along with improving test scores comes another heartening story from city schools. Superintendent Walter G. Amprey has abolished the use of disciplinary removals, a policy that for years has rewarded bad behavior by telling a student he or she didn't have to come to school for three days.
Disciplinary removals, "D.R.s" as they were commonly known, often created problems for neighborhoods, as young people on suspension wandered the streets during school hours. For schools, they represented the easy way out; school officials faced with behavioral problems simply ordered these kids out of sight for a few days. That only put students further behind and did nothing to remedy the problem.
Schools should have ample room to discipline disruptive students -- and indeed the new policy leaves in place longer suspensions of five days for more serious infractions. But the shorter D.R.s are history -- and none too soon. Suspending a pupil should be a last resort, not an easy way out for teachers and administrators.