When it comes to performance on the High School Assessments, the achievement gap in the Baltimore County Public Schools system appears to have widened between black students and their counterparts, an analysis of recently released test data shows.
The HSAs gauge school and individual student progress toward the state?s high school core learning objectives. Beginning with the Class of 2009, passing the assessments is required to graduate.
HSA tests in biology and algebra at the predominantly black Woodlawn and Randallstown high schools resulted in failing scores for more than half of students who were tested by the end of 10th grade, the data show.
At Woodlawn, less than half of the students who took HSAs in English, algebra and biology passed. Of the 430 tested in algebra, 151 passed. In English, 378 took the test, but 150 passed. In biology, of 423 tested, 179 passed. However, the students fared better in government: Of the 421 students tested, 241 passed.
At Randallstown, 309 students were tested in algebra but fewer than half ? 147 ? passed. However, more than half of Randallstown?s students who tested in English passed; out of 289 tested, 157 passed. In biology, 301 took the test; 140 passed.
Aaron Plymouth, retired county schools reading specialist and a former Randallstown High PTSA president, said one problem could be that students are not taking the tests seriously.
“I believe that a lot of students don?t take the importance of the HSAs seriously as a whole and how the tests serve as an indicator later in attaining a rigorous curriculum,” Plymouth said. “It?s sort of a summative type evaluation of information that students learned over time and because this is all new, it will impact the class of 2009.”
Meanwhile, students in Eastern Tech?s Class of 2009, which is predominantly white, fared well in all four test areas ? biology, algebra, English and government.
Of the 343 Eastern Tech students tested in biology, only one failed. All but three of the 339 tested in English passed. In algebra and government, the results were even more impressive: All students who took those tests passed ? 343 and 344, respectively.
Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent Joe Hairston did not return calls for comment. However, before the school scores were hreleased, he told The Examiner that his students? HSA scores have been “very consistent” and “BCPS students have continued to thrive.”
