On Tuesday night, just hours after the High School Assessment test scores were released across Maryland, this ninth-grade English teacher was on the telephone describing the usual day. Some of his students had enough energy to run sprints around the room. Some held high-decibel conversations during tests. One put his head on his desk and slept. This was considered a blessing.

The statewide testing gave us a variation on a theme: Kids in the healthy school districts, such as Howard and Harford and Anne Arundel counties, did real well, and those in the city of Baltimore showed some improvement but lagged behind most areas.