Middle schoolers in Montgomery County turned in disappointing results on the state’s 2009 standardized tests, with special-needs students showing the worst performance since 2006.
Twelve of the county’s 38 middle schools failed to meet all of their performance targets under the sweeping federal education legislation of No Child Left Behind compared with five schools last year. That target pertains to a percentage of students required to pass the tests.
Special education students fared worst of all the groups the law requires states to measure, including low-income students and five racial categories.
In eight of the middle schools, special education students did not perform well enough on math, which is compared with four schools in 2008. In four schools, special education students missed the mark in reading, compared with two schools last year.
The worsened performance “is definitely on our radar,” said Laura Berthiaume, a county school board member who serves on the special education committee.
“It’s an area of particular concern, because I don’t know that we’re offering the full spectrum of services for our special-needs students, so if we’re seeing a trend of not meeting our targets, I want to know why that is.”
Six of the schools that struggled with their special-needs students had similar problems in the past three years: Gaithersburg’s Forest Oak and Gaithersburg Middle, Germantown’s Martin Luther King Middle, Rockville’s Julius West, and Silver Spring’s Loiederman and Sligo Middle.
A statement from the school system blamed the decline in progress on the implementation of a new “modified” test for special-needs students that was used for the first time in the spring. About 40 percent of students passed the modified reading test, while 23 percent passed the math exam.
“We are pleased with the progress” of students overall, said Superintendent Jerry Weast, “but know that we have much more work to do to ensure that every child is ready for college.”
Berthiaume said the school board hoped to investigate the special education data in the fall.
“We have board members that are on [parents’] side,” she said. “We have members who are very interested in making sure the school system meets [parents’] needs.”
