August 23rd, 2017 by WCBC Radio

System and school level results for the third year of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) tests found stronger English Language Arts and math scores in Allegany County Public Schools. Complete 2017 PARCC results at the state, system, and school-level were released on Tuesday, August 22, 2017, five weeks earlier than last year.
“I am pleased that we continue to make growth in our third year of PARCC Assessments, and wish to publicly thank our teachers, instructional leaders, and students for their hard work toward this end,” said Dr. David Cox, ACPS Superintendent of Schools. “The curriculum standards and assessments are significantly more rigorous than the former Maryland State Assessments and the High School Assessments. We have a lot a work ahead of us as we work deliberately toward equitable learning for all ACPS students.”
In Allegany County, both English Language Arts and math gains were statistically significant at all levels. Students in grade seven English Language Arts showed the greatest growth, an increase of 7.31%, since last year in the percentage of students scoring a 4 or 5. Students in grade six showed the greatest growth in math, an increase of 5.73%, in the percentage of students scoring a 4 or 5.
The PARCC exams are considerably more rigorous than the Maryland School Assessment tests they replaced in 2015 and are designed to provide students, parents, and teachers a better idea of where students stand in regard to college and career readiness.
Scores on the PARCC assessment are not being used for educator, school, or system level accountability purposes at this time. In the coming weeks, Maryland will send to the federal government a revised accountability plan, under the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act. That document will outline the state’s ideas on how it will use state assessment data in the coming years. The state plan must be approved by the U.S. Department of Education.
PARCC assessments are scored on a five-point scale, with level 1 set as not meeting expectations and level 5 as exceeding expectations. MSDE’s data release reveals other highlights about student performance in ACPS:
• The percentage of students scoring a 4 or 5 in English Language Arts increased at every grade level.
• English Language Arts in grades three, four, and five were all above the state average.
• The percentage of students scoring a 4 or 5 in math is above the state average at all grade levels three through eight.
• Grades three, four, six, eight, and Algebra I showed slight increases in the percentage of students scoring a 4 or 5.
• The pass rate for students in grade eight taking Algebra I was 95.9%.
Maryland’s state assessments are now administered electronically, allowing the scores to be tallied and returned to educators and families at a far more rapid rate than in pervious years. The plan is to decrease testing time and to further improve turnaround time, providing teachers with even more useful data on student performance.
Maryland’s PARCC results are available at www.mdreportcard.org.