Maryland Report Card 2024: 5-Star Schools

[Anonymous]

Top 10 5-Star Elementary Schools in MCPS (in order):
1. Seven Locks
2. Wayside
3. Bannockburn
4. Carderock Springs
5. Wood Acres
6. Travilah
7. Bradley Hills
8. Wilson Wims
9. Stone Mill
10. Beverly Farms

Only 7% of schools across the state received 5 stars.

[Anonymous]

MCPS usually does its own press release that highlights the MCPS specific results. Unfortunately, the rating for my kid's DCC high school didn't budge. It's still a three-star school.

[Anonymous]

Surprise! Wealthy kids test better!

[Anonymous]

Here's MCPS's release: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?pagetype=showrelease&id=13447&type=&startYear=&pageNumber=&mode=

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) released its 2024 Maryland Report Card, which measures the success of schools and identifies areas for improvement for state, district and school-level results in the state of Maryland.

MSDE included 202 Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in its 2023-2024 school year performance evaluation. Of the MCPS schools evaluated, 50% obtained a 5-star or 4-star rating. This represents an increase of 1.8% over the 2022-2023 school year. The increase is due in part to a rise in the total number of schools measured from the past two school years, including the opening of Cabin Branch Elementary School in the 2023-2024 school year and the recent MSDE inclusion of six district primary schools that serve only prekindergarten through Grade 2 students. These six primary schools will not be included in the percentile ranking against other schools in the state of Maryland.

Overall performance as reported by the Maryland State Report Card for MCPS schools is disappointingly flat. Schools earning three stars or higher registered an increase of only 0.8%. Areas of student performance, such as literacy rates, remain “not met” as reported in the state data.

Beginning this school year, MCPS has made important changes to improve student performance, including:

Implementation of a new and rigorous literacy curriculum, the Core Knowledge and Language Arts Literacy Curriculum (CKLA).

A strategic direction of school-focused support framework implemented by new MCPS superintendent, Dr. Thomas W. Taylor.

Continued implementation of the Chronic Absenteeism Action Plan, ensuring students are physically present in school to learn.

Maintaining the district’s focus on physical and emotional safety for students and staff.

Maryland report card data provide a comprehensive view of school performance under the Maryland Accountability System for the 2023-2024 academic year. All schools are measured on academic achievement, progress toward English language proficiency, and school quality and student success measures. High schools are also measured on graduation rates and postsecondary readiness. Measurements for elementary and middle schools include an academic progress indicator.

Based on these performance indicators, the state gave each school a percentile rank, a total earned points percentage, and a Star rating on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest.

This year’s results showed that 41% of schools across the state earned the top two ratings of four or five stars. MCPS schools exceeded the state average by 9%.

More than 93% of MCPS schools earned three or more stars, exceeding the statewide average of 83%.

[Anonymous]

Here's the Washington Post's coverage of the MSDE Report Card results:

SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/03/maryland-school-report-card-results-2024/

The number of Maryland schools that earned the highest ratings on the state’s annual report card increased this year, an improvement local education officials attributed to more students passing assessments taken in the spring.

Across the state, 41 percent of schools received at least 4 out of 5 stars on the rating, which measures schools based on academic achievement, the proficiency of multilingual learners and school quality, among other factors. That’s up from 38 percent last year.

Eighteen schools in Montgomery County — the state’s most populous jurisdiction — earned five stars, while four schools earned the top score in Prince George’s, both increases over last year. Most of the top-rated schools are elementary schools.

Schools can earn up to 100 points on the report card. Last year, 80 percent of schools received at least three stars, which means they earned at least 45 points. This year, that figure rose to about 83 percent, according to data presented to the State Board of Education.

“What’s standing out to me is being able to see the forward-moving progress,” said Xiomara Medina, a state board member from Anne Arundel County. “We obviously know there’s a lot of work to be done, but I think that in looking at these graphs, it really lends itself to us working from a strengths-based model as opposed to a deficit-based model.”

This is the fifth report card after the state started rating schools in 2018. Ratings were not issued for the 2019-2020 school year or 2020-2021 school year due to the pandemic.

Geoff Sanderson, the deputy state superintendent for accountability, recently said the new data “mostly tracks with the slight increases we saw in overall student achievement from the prior year.”

Montgomery County school leaders called the district’s results “disappointedly flat” in a news release Tuesday, saying the number of their schools earning at least three stars increased by less than 1 percent. Officials said a new literacy curriculum and an ongoing plan to decrease chronic absenteeism should help drive up student performance.

[Anonymous]

List of WPES, in case someone is searching for it.

[Anonymous]

Wilson Wims ES in Clarksburg!

Anonymous wrote:List of WPES, in case someone is searching for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Surprise! Wealthy kids test better!

Kids of wealthy parents often have higher IQ's and tutors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the Washington Post's coverage of the MSDE Report Card results:

SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/03/maryland-school-report-card-results-2024/

The number of Maryland schools that earned the highest ratings on the state’s annual report card increased this year, an improvement local education officials attributed to more students passing assessments taken in the spring.

Across the state, 41 percent of schools received at least 4 out of 5 stars on the rating, which measures schools based on academic achievement, the proficiency of multilingual learners and school quality, among other factors. That’s up from 38 percent last year.

Eighteen schools in Montgomery County — the state’s most populous jurisdiction — earned five stars, while four schools earned the top score in Prince George’s, both increases over last year. Most of the top-rated schools are elementary schools.

Schools can earn up to 100 points on the report card. Last year, 80 percent of schools received at least three stars, which means they earned at least 45 points. This year, that figure rose to about 83 percent, according to data presented to the State Board of Education.

“What’s standing out to me is being able to see the forward-moving progress,” said Xiomara Medina, a state board member from Anne Arundel County. “We obviously know there’s a lot of work to be done, but I think that in looking at these graphs, it really lends itself to us working from a strengths-based model as opposed to a deficit-based model.”

This is the fifth report card after the state started rating schools in 2018. Ratings were not issued for the 2019-2020 school year or 2020-2021 school year due to the pandemic.

Geoff Sanderson, the deputy state superintendent for accountability, recently said the new data “mostly tracks with the slight increases we saw in overall student achievement from the prior year.”

Montgomery County school leaders called the district’s results “disappointedly flat” in a news release Tuesday, saying the number of their schools earning at least three stars increased by less than 1 percent. Officials said a new literacy curriculum and an ongoing plan to decrease chronic absenteeism should help drive up student performance.

In HS, for english, my child is on their second book this year. That's not a good literacy curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Surprise! Wealthy kids test better!

There's always one in the crowd. Instead of celebrating one of the (very) few victories that MCPS has, they throw scat. I hope you don't work for MCPS, BOE or MC Board, because if you do you need to be fired.

But if you want to play that game, yes, educated parents statistically tend to value education and be financially more successful. They also tend to purchase houses that are more expensive, so cluster with other like-minded parents. They also have the financial resources to hire tutors if and when the public schools fail to educate.

If you want to change that, then you need to start with the attitudes of the parents towards academics. The children are all just along for the ride.

To everyone else except this person, congratulations on achieving 5-stars! It's a huge accomplishment!

[Anonymous]

What do the 4 year vs 5 year target graduation rates mean?

I thought all graduations were 4 year targets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprise! Wealthy kids test better!

There's always one in the crowd. Instead of celebrating one of the (very) few victories that MCPS has, they throw scat. I hope you don't work for MCPS, BOE or MC Board, because if you do you need to be fired.

But if you want to play that game, yes, educated parents statistically tend to value education and be financially more successful. They also tend to purchase houses that are more expensive, so cluster with other like-minded parents. They also have the financial resources to hire tutors if and when the public schools fail to educate.

If you want to change that, then you need to start with the attitudes of the parents towards academics. The children are all just along for the ride.

To everyone else except this person, congratulations on achieving 5-stars! It's a huge accomplishment!

I am not that poster, but I understand what they mean. It’s not a huge accomplishment for a school to produce competent students when those students have had every advantage. Just like it’s not the school’s failure if massively disadvantaged kids score poorly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprise! Wealthy kids test better!

There's always one in the crowd. Instead of celebrating one of the (very) few victories that MCPS has, they throw scat. I hope you don't work for MCPS, BOE or MC Board, because if you do you need to be fired.

But if you want to play that game, yes, educated parents statistically tend to value education and be financially more successful. They also tend to purchase houses that are more expensive, so cluster with other like-minded parents. They also have the financial resources to hire tutors if and when the public schools fail to educate.

If you want to change that, then you need to start with the attitudes of the parents towards academics. The children are all just along for the ride.

To everyone else except this person, congratulations on achieving 5-stars! It's a huge accomplishment!

Is it? It only means you’ve gotten at least 75 of the 100 possible points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprise! Wealthy kids test better!

There's always one in the crowd. Instead of celebrating one of the (very) few victories that MCPS has, they throw scat. I hope you don't work for MCPS, BOE or MC Board, because if you do you need to be fired.

But if you want to play that game, yes, educated parents statistically tend to value education and be financially more successful. They also tend to purchase houses that are more expensive, so cluster with other like-minded parents. They also have the financial resources to hire tutors if and when the public schools fail to educate.

If you want to change that, then you need to start with the attitudes of the parents towards academics. The children are all just along for the ride.

To everyone else except this person, congratulations on achieving 5-stars! It's a huge accomplishment!

This isn’t a victory it’s an embarrassment.

[Anonymous]

I believe you can have two things at once: celebrate the accomplishment of those schools, as well as, acknowledge there is still work to do in improving all schools.
Also, the report card measures multiple metrics beyond achievement. It seems academic growth plays the biggest part, along with school climate and English Language Learner growth.