In the Howard County public school system, the greatest improvement in student performance on the 2006 Maryland School Assessment occurred in math for grades 6 to 8.
“I want to give special kudos to the middle school educators. We?re really touched by your hard work,” School Board Member Courtney Watson said during the board?s recent meeting in Ellicott City.
School administrators presented a report of the test results to the board during the meeting. The MSAs measure student proficiency in reading and math for grades three through eight.
According to the federal No Child Left Behind Law, students must be proficient in the subjects by the 2013-14 school year. Last year, Howard school officials identified middle school math scores as a “weak link” that needed improvement, School Board Member Patricia Gordon said in a telephone interview Sunday.
During the 2005-06 school year, math instructional support teachers were placed at four of the county?s 13 middle schools: Harper?s Choice, Murray Hill, Oakland Mills and Wilde Lake. All of the schools, except for Wilde Lake, showed an improvement in the percent of students proficient in math. Wilde Lake declined by 1 percentage point.
According to data released by the system, middle schoolers as a whole showed an increase in the percent of students scoring at proficient or better on the math portion of the test from 2004 to 2006.
For sixth-graders, the jump was 11 percent; seventh-graders, 9 percent; and eight-graders, 14 percent.
The news means the system should start touting itself as a “world-class school district,” said School Board Chairman Joshua Kaufman during the meeting.
At a glance
Howard County public middle school students scoring at proficient or better on the math portion of the 2006 Maryland School Assessment:
? Sixth-graders ? 83 percent
? Seventh-graders ? 80 percent
? Eighth-graders ? 76 percent
