Just recently, MCPS highlighted some performance data showing improvements over the downturns from 2020 with pandemic school closures.
Unbeknownst to most, today the state of Maryland also released their state spring 2022 MCAP assessment data for English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics, so let’s take a look at that. Full report can be found here.
For this piece we will go in order of the document here even though some of the most shocking figures (Math) are near the end.
English and Language Arts (ELA) Scores catching up
First, we have ELA Percent of Students Proficient by tests.
Important to remember that this is by year not cohort so it is not comparing the same students year over year (we’ll get to that later).
After large drops from 2019 to 2021 in all but 2 grade levels, 4 out of 7 of the age groups have recovered above 2019 levels (3 remain below) and overall ELA for grades 3-8 has matched 2019 levels. Interestingly, both levels that increased proficiencies in 2021 (ELA 6 and ELA 10) had drops in 2022.
They state in this next by student group (demographics chart) that “all student groups experienced a rebound in 2021-2022 as compared to 2018-2019 but that doesn’t appear to actually be the cases for females, Hispanics/Latinos and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander though they all are close. I suspect they meant to compare to 2020-2021 here which would have been a lot less.
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For the year 2021-2022, ELA grades 3-8 proficiencies ranked Montgomery County 6th in the state.
Baltimore City and Dorchester county were the only areas under 30% proficiency (over 70% not proficient).
Montgomery County had just over half (53%) of students proficiency in this most recent testing.
English grade 10 actually did improve across all student groups and was higher across the board with similar ordering in Maryland Counties.
Mathematics
Math proficiency was at much lower numbers overall even in 2019 but the lows in 2021 were mouth dropping and still haven’t caught up across the board.
In some cases the 2021 Math proficiency levels dropped to a third or less of the 2019 numbers. They have increased in 2022 but still not a single grade in 2021 or 2022 reached 2019 proficiency numbers (low as those were).
Just dismal performance across the board by student groups as well. Even at the top proficiency level (both before pandemic in 2019 and now in 2022) Asians lost 15% of proficiency on average.
At the other end, FARMS students, Hispanic/Latinos of any race, and English Learners were amongst those that lost nearly half of the 2019 proficiency going into 2022.
Looking at County rankings for Math grades 3-8, similar patterns to ELA emerge with the difference being everyone is just much lower proficiency when compared to ELA. Montgomery County is still 6th from best with just 31% efficiency.
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Baltimore City and Prince George’s county round out the bottom with 90% or more not proficient in math. The top county, Carroll only had 38% proficiency.
Algebra 1 tests where even worse with nearly every student group losing over half their proficiency or more when compared to 2019.
Students with disabilities, FARMS, English Learners, and African Americans all had 95% or more of students not proficient in Algebra. English learners were at 1% and Students with disabilities were at 2% proficiency.
4 counties (Caroline, Dorchester, Baltimore City, and Kent) ranked below 5% – so low they aren’t even showing the actual numbers.
Montgomery County dropped to 7th best here with 20% proficient in Algebra.
Cusp of Proficiency
One bright side is that according to the charts “a substantial percentage of students scored just below the proficiency score cutoff”
National Comparison
There is also a comparison to national data (following the same groups of students over time from 2017-2022) which shows how much worse math proficiency losses were compared to ELA.
For reference, here is the Burbio state school in person tracking index for 2020/2021 (excludes DC)
Cohort Tracking over Time
These last 2 charts maybe the most important for real data because they show the cohort performance (i.e. following a year of students over time instead of looking at this years 3rd grade compared to 3rd grade from 3-4 years ago).
They show that the cohorts improved by 4-5 percentage points since grade 3 in ELA
The picture in math is again not so pretty with a massive decrease of 24-26 percentage points since grade 3 in matching cohorts.
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