Decatur Middle students had highest proficiency in math in all of Maryland
By Tara Fischer
Staff Writer
(Oct. 3, 2024) Test scores released last month reveal that Worcester County Public Schools are outperforming systems across the state.
On Tuesday, Sept. 17, Coordinator of Research and Student Information Tom Hamill gave an in-depth presentation to the Worcester County Board of Education regarding statewide performance data on English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics assessments administered in spring 2024.
The Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) scores released by the Maryland State Department of Education showed Worcester County Public Schools at the top in both content areas.
In ELA, WCPS had the highest proficiency level of all state school systems, with 69.4% of students receiving passing marks, a three or a four, in the 2024 spring exams. This is 21 percentage points higher than the state average of 48.4%.
Hamill broke the data down even further. Fourth-grade ELA saw a 10.16% increase in passing scores from 2022, when 62.5% reached proficiency, to 2024, when that figure rose to 72.69%. Sixth-grade ELA also saw a dramatic rise from two years ago, when 60.4% of the young learners reached a three or four on the assessment, to this year, when 72.59% met grade-level standards.
While most grade levels have improved, ELA eight and ten saw a nominal decrease in scores from 2022. The former fell from 69.2% to 68.32%, while the latter dipped from 71% to 70.43%.
Hamill also notes that fifth-grade ELA remains an outlier. In Worcester County, the MCAP indicated that only 56.48% of students in grade five demonstrated proficiency. The other grade levels, however, all showed nearly 70% pass rates.
“For the most part, for ELA, we are near 70% proficiency in all but grade five,” he said. “You’ll see that fifth grade is a statewide, maybe national, concern.”
In math, Worcester’s scores, 39.3% of students performing at proficiency or above on the assessments, earned them the second-place slot behind Howard County, whose pass rates came in at 41.1%. The Maryland average in this category was 24.1%.
All grade levels in this category improved from 2022. For instance, math four rose from 42.4% to 57.37%, and math six increased from 23.4% to 36.72%.
Stephen Decatur Middle School had the highest math eight scores in the state out of about 800 schools, Hamill said, with nearly 56% of its eighth-grade students receiving proficient marks in the assessments.
“One thing I would like to point out is when we get into math six, seven, and eight, there is a downward trend in proficiency rates at the state level, one that we are not experiencing. One that we are overcoming,” Hamill added. “As a district, we are bouncing back from that fifth-grade inflection point.”
According to Hamill, to grade the MCAP exams, the state determines the difficulty of the questions and examines how each student performed on each one to create a scale score.
“So, in practicality, you might be looking at a test with 50 questions, a student getting 20 questions right, and that is translated into them passing, depending on how the test works out,” Hamill said. “With the MCAP, the math side, in particular, is all computer-adapted at this point. What is happening is the students answer a question; if they get it right, the next question is supposed to be a little harder, and if they get that one right, the next one is a little bit harder, and if they get that one wrong, it goes back a little bit. It uses that to figure out where that student is in terms of a score.”
To better understand student performance, WCPS officials examine how its internal metrics, such as grades from iReady assessments, compare with the MCAP marks.
iReady is a personalized online learning program for reading and mathematics that allows teachers to determine their students’ needs. In math and ELA, kids in grades three through eight are given assessments through the platform three times a year.
“From that, we are able to get a sense for when kids are on grade level or not on grade level and may need additional support,” Hamill said.
However, math scores from the iReady and the MCAP exams deviate when compared.
Looking at the winter iReady assessment, which happens roughly a month before MCAP, the research and student information coordinator said that nearly 60% of math five students demonstrated early or mid-grade level. However, this translated into only 43% of an MCAP pass rate.
Math six iReady scores came in at 55%, which dipped to 35.46% on the MCAP, and math seven’s 52% proficiency rate on the winter preliminary assessment fell to 39.53% on the spring exam.
“This suggests that there is perhaps a disconnect between what iReady is measuring and what the state is possibly measuring,” Hamill said. “It is interesting because when you look at iReady as a whole…it correlates very well to the MCAP…so it is interesting when we see these departures what is described at on grade level and yet here is what the state is telling us with regards to on grade level.”
Still, Worcester County’s test scores came out on top, even on a question-by-question basis. Looking at problems one through 49 of an assessment provided by the state, ranked from easiest to most difficult, Hamill presented a graph to the board that compared the percentage of students throughout Maryland and at the county level that answered each inquiry correctly.
In almost every case, the percentage of Worcester test-takers who got each question right was higher than the state percentage.
“Even when talking about the really difficult questions…our students are still outperforming the state on those really difficult questions,” Hamill said.
Hamill maintained that Worcester County is an effective school system. Simply teaching a third grader to read at grade level is expected progress, he said, but a real sign of success is taking aspects, like poverty, that are out of the educators’ control and learning to mitigate them.
Based on Worcester’s economically disadvantaged rate, the anticipated level of proficiency is around 50%. However, for third-grade reading, for example, more than 70% of students are at a passing rate based on MCAP scores.
Hamill references Pocomoke Elementary School, which he defines as an “extreme outlier”, and compares their performance to if the Stephen Decatur High School football team was to beat the University of Maryland Terps.
“You would expect the Terps to win,” he said. “They have a lot of advantages…you would expect by nature of those advantages that they have to succeed. If SDHS could beat on the Terps, it would be noteworthy…so when I point out a school like PES, that is what I think of…somehow this county has managed to make it to that poverty is not prophecy.”
WCPS Superintendent Lou Taylor said he attendeda superintendent meeting shortly after the scores came out, where roughly six other school system leaders asked him about Worcester’s key to success.
“The secret sauce,” he maintained, is the depth of their educational strategies, which the system continues to adapt, and the attention to the individual student. The transition from looking at the class as a whole to breaking it down to each learner, he said, began under former superintendent Dr. Jon Andes, who was appointed to the role in 1996 and served for 16 years, and currently acts on the Worcester County Board of Education.
“We are constantly looking at individual student achievement and making determinations at the classroom and school level of what services we can localize to move that student forward,” Andes said. “It does not matter if the student is proficient or wherever they happen to be. We are going to work … we are hungry to make a difference.”