For the first time last school year, Maryland students took the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers tests, which assess college and career readiness upon graduation.
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State officials said the tests also serve as end-of-course exams for students taking Algebra I and English II.
A 750 is the equivalent of scoring four on PARCC’s five-point scoring scale, the threshold for meeting grade-level expectations. Students set to graduate earlier can use the test scores as one of several options for graduation.
“It’s hard to be able to compare with this being a new test”, she said.
“The PARCC assessments were more demanding than previous state tests”, State Superintendent of Education Dr. Carey Wright said.
Across the state, students scored better in English than in algebra, but that was expected because the state’s old English curriculum more closely matched the new standards than did the math standards.
Wiley Bates Middle School in Annapolis is known for its performing and visual arts magnet program, but the school has now scored big points for how well students performed on the PARCC high school level Algebra one test.
The high school benchmark has been the most contentious issue, given that the stakes are the highest, and a chief critic of the state’s methods yesterday said the administration’s latest line still remains an unfairly defined barrier for tens of thousands of current seniors on the cusp of graduating.
In English II, Ocean Springs and Long Beach ranked fourth in the state in overall test scores.
More than 56 percent of students who took the English 10 assessment met or exceeded the state’s standards for career and college readiness, which have been implemented in recent years, according to a news release from the school system.
Statewide, less than a third of students were reported meeting or exceeding the grade level standard in Algebra I; almost 40 percent met grade-level expectations for English; and only 20 percent met goals in the Algebra II exam.
The first statewide results were released last month, and schools are slated to receive their individual results and that of their students in the next couple of weeks.
English scores were much lower for students at Havre de Grace High School, where at least 18.2 percent met or exceeded standards, 46.2 percent at Edgewood High School, at least 24.5 percent at Joppatowne High School, 49.7 percent at Aberdeen High School, at least 7.7 percent at the Center for Educational Opportunity in Aberdeen and 38 percent at Harford Technical High School.
“Our cut scores are not going to be below proficient”, she said.
Bowers said he was “especially concerned” about those results. The department equates that to being a “C” student, and made level 3 the baseline for counting a student as “college and career ready”. “It was all the kids who did well and that’s what I’m most proud of, our diversity came through with the Algebra PARCC testing”, Bates Middle School principal Paul Deroo said.
The scores were approved on Thursday morning during a special-called meeting of the Mississippi Board of Education.
The gaps in performance between students of different races was similar on the Algebra 2 and English 10 exams.
The state is preparing letters for school districts to send to parents explaining the new test results, as well as information for teachers.
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“We feel like we have the right plan that we just started executing”, he said.
