Washington-area school districts have compromised their status as top performers, as other school systems in Maryland and Virginia outpace them on test score and graduation rate increases.
Even when scores went up in Montgomery and Fairfax, other districts posted more robust gains, pushing the area rivals down in their own state rankings, according to an analysis by The Washington Examiner of data released by the state education departments.
Montgomery’s 2010 graduation rate of 90 percent ranked eighth among Maryland’s 24 districts — a technical increase from 2009’s rate of 87.4, but well below that of years past.
Just a decade ago, Montgomery County ranked highest among Maryland school districts at 91.7 percent, beating out Howard County by two-fifths of a percentage point.
But Howard ranked third this year at 94.3 percent, and has remained one of the top four districts since 2000 — as has Carroll County, this year’s champion at 95.3 percent. Montgomery hasn’t cracked the top four since 2005.
And although scores improved since 2003 on the Maryland State Assessments, Montgomery ranked significantly lower among districts in 2010 on both math and reading in elementary and middle schools. For instance, Montgomery’s eighth-grade students placed second in the state on the math exam in 2003; by 2010, they were 10th.
A graduation rate of 91.2 put Fairfax at 21st of Virginia’s 132 school systems, up from 90.4 in 2009. Just a year ago, Fairfax placed 14th among state systems. In 2008, Fairfax’s rate was also 91.2, but that earned the district the 10th place spot; 11 school systems passed Fairfax. Virginia implemented a new and more accurate formula for calculating graduation rate in 2008, making previous years’ rates incomparable.
Fairfax fared better on state assessments, increasing its standings for third-grade math and reading performance, as well as eighth-grade reading, but falling from 24th to 31st in third-grade math scores.
Fairfax School Board member Patricia Reed said she did not know why the rate wasn’t keeping pace. “I’m kind of surprised by that and don’t have the reasoning for it,” she said.
Jane Strauss, another board member, suggested that Fairfax’s size — it’s the 12th-largest district in the nation — kept its students from making significant statistical progress. “It isn’t as though we are slipping. It’s that everybody else is doing a better job than they have,” Strauss said.
Montgomery school board member Michael Durso was less forgiving of the disparity between the data and his district’s gold-standard reputation, calling for an independent review of the school system. “The reputation of the school system, and the reporting of statistics and test scores, have been more tied into the personality and the image of [Superintendent Jerry Weast] as our leader, than the students and teachers who are impacted even more,” Durso said. “We always haven’t been as candid about some of our shortcomings, as opposed to publishing our positives.”
Weast has served as superintendent for 11 years, and plans to retire this June. Much of his tenure has focused on “branding” Montgomery as a top school district, and in June, he signed a $4.5 million contract on behalf of the county with a global textbook publisher to create and market a K-5 curriculum to other school districts.
“Perhaps the tenure of the superintendent has been maybe lengthier than it should have been,” Durso said.
Kristin Trible, president of the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations, said she was concerned about Montgomery’s relative performance drop. “It’s time to look and see if there are benefits to being on the ‘cutting-edge,'” she said. “We’re always holding that our curriculum standards are higher than the state’s, but what’s not working? What are other counties doing?”
