When Stephen W. Lafferty opened the newspaper Dec. 7, he could not believe his eyes: Some MSPAP scores at his well-heeled neighborhood's high-achieving elementary school had nose-dived.
Twenty-eight percent of third-graders at Stoneleigh Elementary School had earned a satisfactory score on MSPAP's reading test, a 23 percent drop. Of about 100 elementary schools in the county, only six posted larger losses.
Lafferty, a state housing official who does not have children, discussed this with his wife, and later talked with friends. They worried that prospective homebuyers would be turned off by the school's poor scores - making the value of Stoneleigh's large and expensive houses plummet.
Fear that a tree-lined Baltimore County community's property values would sink because third-graders slipped on one year's test is another reminder that the high-stakes testing that has overrun public education has an impact well beyond the schoolhouse.
And it is all the more illustrative of the outsized significance of standardized exams these days because, in the eyes of Maryland and county educators, this year's MSPAP results carry little weight: The Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests are being eliminated. Before, during and after the last round of MSPAP scores were released two weeks ago, state and county education officials advised that the scores don't mean much.
"But it does mean something," said PTA President Charles Beckman, who has fielded calls from concerned residents. "It means something to the community leaders who think the school is going into the ground, even though everybody knows the scores didn't really mean anything."
Standardized tests, once used by the military to determine which soldiers to send into combat, are now a popular linchpin of efforts to improve schools.
Politicians have promoted the annual exams as a way to measure students' academic achievement - and to assess whether teachers, principals and superintendents are doing their jobs.
The heavy use of testing has prompted educators to focus on instruction, but also has had unintended consequences.
Some schools have sacrificed arts and vocational programs to prepare students for the tests. Some students, thinking they won't pass exams required to graduate, have dropped out. And real estate agents push homes by pointing to a neighborhood school's good test results.
"It is a consequence of over-reliance on the test," said Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, an organization in Cambridge, Mass., that opposes high-stakes testing because some think they measure family wealth, not quality of instruction.
"For the same reasons tests shouldn't be used to make decisions about schools or individuals, they shouldn't be used to guide home buying," Neill said. "They're not very good measures of what students have hopefully learned."
Student performance is not supposed to drop at Stoneleigh Elementary, one of Baltimore County's highest-performing schools, serving 535 children of academics, bankers and lawyers. So the third-graders' MSPAP results raised eyebrows across the neighborhood.
Residents voiced concerns at Stoneleigh Elementary's holiday bazaar that day, at a community meeting Tuesday night and during impromptu conversations throughout the week.
"When people are looking for a neighborhood in which to live, the quality of a school is critical," said Lafferty, who ran unsuccessfully for state delegate in the fall. "All of us who live in the area know how good Stoneleigh Elementary is. We want to make sure that the quality of education remains high."
Throughout the state this year, third-grade scores on the MSPAP exams fell. Three other traditionally high-performing elementary schools in Baltimore County experienced sharp drops.
State and county educators theorize that the drops occurred because an out-of-state firm graded the tests and because principals and teachers had played down preparation for them because the exams were due to be eliminated. Pupils will take a new standardized test next year.
"We're not expecting people should put great energy into analyzing these results," said Assistant State Superintendent Ronald A. Peiffer.
To counter the alarm, Principal Marsha A. Roach sent a letter to parents Monday. She did not excuse the results, but called them a "mystery" that should be considered in the context of pupils' continued high achievement on other exams.
Stoneleigh Elementary's most recent scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills remained at the school's historically high levels. Fifth-graders' MSPAP scores rose.
"These third-grade scores are just not in line with anything," Roach said in an interview. She said she would use the more reliable CTBS scores and county test results to tweak instruction, which has been bolstered by extra help in writing and reading.
Taking up the cause, Stoneleigh's community leaders are putting out the word: The elementary school is fine. They have CTBS tables to prove it.
Carole McDade, the Stoneleigh Community Association's school liaison, said she will talk with local, county and statewide PTA groups about lobbying the Maryland State Department of Education to remove the scores from its Web site, which many homebuyers peruse before deciding where to live.
"There is a contingent of people here who believe that having these scores remain in the public domain is an issue," McDade said.
But McDade and others in the community fear the damage has been done. And they worry that one neighborhood won't be able to undo the harm.
At least until next year's test results come out.
Sun electronic news editor Mike Himowitz contributed to this article.