WASHINGTON — The results are in for Maryland high schoolers who took the inaugural statewide exams related to the Common Core educational standards, and the numbers don’t look good.
Education officials, however, are saying it’s not a cause for alarm.
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test results, released Tuesday, show that more than half the students tested below the standard for 10th-grade English, while two-thirds fell short in Algebra I.
Only 20 percent of students hit the mark on the Algebra II test.
Maryland’s interim superintendent of schools, Jack Smith, said in a statement that the PARCC test, which was given last spring, was “a challenging assessment, and the numbers reflect that.”
He added, however, that “this data is only a snapshot; it’s one additional measure to use when viewing the progress of our students, along with many other factors.”
Individual students’ scores will be released to parents later this fall, The Baltimore Sun says. Scores for individual schools will be released next week; scores for earlier grades, in December.
The scores show disparities along racial and economic lines: Only about a quarter of African-American students met the standard in English, 6 percent in Algebra II. Only 7 percent of special education students and 23 percent of those who qualify for subsidized lunches met the English benchmark, 13.2 percent in Algebra I and 7 percent in Algebra II.
The Sun reports that every time a statewide test has been given to Maryland students, the initial scores were quite low and rose in subsequent years.
This year’s PARCC tests are “a new starting line,” Smith said; they won’t be used to assess schools or students yet.
2015 PARCC Performance Summary
In the District, 27 percent of students were at or above the standards in English, 12 percent in geometry.
“This year’s test serves as an important baseline from which we will work to help prepare all students,” D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said in a statement Tuesday.
“DCPS is committed to having difficult, but honest, conversations with families about how their children are doing,” she said.
“We have seen consistent growth in every metric of success and I expect to see the same with PARCC in the coming years.”
