Several top Maryland school districts have faced the demographic shifts that Montgomery County officials have blamed for stalls in test scores.
Hispanic and black students each comprise a 23 percent share of Montgomery County Public Schools’ 2010 enrollment. Ten years ago, the numbers weren’t drastically different: Fifteen percent of students were Hispanic and 21 percent were black.
Superintendent Jerry Weast has often cited demographic shifts as a challenge as he tried to raise scores during his 11-year tenure. When graduation rates fell in 2008, he wrote in a memo that higher drop-out rates among minority students were behind the statistic. “We continue to lose students, and there appear to be as many unique sets of factors and facts as to the students who drop out,” he said.
But Howard and Frederick counties have both seen their minority enrollment balloon — and have remained firmly in the top four among Maryland’s 24 districts for graduation rates in the past 10 years.
There are Hispanic population of Frederick has exploded nearly 400 percent, while the black population has increased 62 percent. The percentages are 8.7 percent and 12.6 percent, respectively.
Frederick’s graduation rate of 94.56 percent was the second-highest in Maryland and has increased steadily since 2000, when 88.62 percent of Frederick seniors graduated. Montgomery, which finished eighth at 90.01 percent this year, used to top Frederick with a 91.66 graduation rate in 2000.
Similarly, Howard County’s Hispanic enrollment has tripled — although remains small at 5.8 percent — and 45 percent more black students fill its classrooms.
Howard played second fiddle to Montgomery’s first-place finish among Maryland districts in 2000, with a 91.28 percent graduation rate. In 2010, Howard graduated 94.31 percent of seniors, and ranked third.
Montgomery school board member Michael Durso said he has “never seen [shifting demographics] as a valid argument” for Montgomery’s decreasing performance relative to other Maryland districts.
“We seem to argue it both ways — in one breath we will say that race and socioeconomic status are not going to be impediments to achievement, but when areas come up that could be interpreted as lagging, we immediately go to demographics as the cause,” Durso said. “Most areas are facing the same situation, and it’s our role to deal with all students.”
“There’s a fine line,” he said, “between saying it presents a challenge and using it as an excuse for lack of progress.”
