How does MCPS share school-level test scores?
Act One of a play that you should see as a matinee so you don't fall asleep.
MCPS students generate a lot of standardized test score data. What if you, presumably a regular person with no special access, wanted to see measures of these data school by school? Where might you look, and what would you find?
I’m mixing up the format today. The script is fictionalized but based on real conversations I’ve had over the years with friends, journalists, researchers, and myself.
ACT ONE
Scene 1
Nora and Friend are talking on the phone. Friend is folding laundry. Nora is walking dog.
FRIEND
I’m getting tripped up looking for school test scores at the MCPS website. I found a bunch of data dashboards, but they give me errors.
NORA
Huh, I’m not sure if MCPS is still using them. I’ll take a look later.
The last time I looked at one of their dashboards was years ago. As I recall, they combine so much stuff that it’s hard to figure out what they mean.
FRIEND
Well, I can’t get into them anyway. Then I found some stuff in the district’s annual report. They have this whole strategic planning scorecard, with baseline data from 2024-2025, and empty spaces for the 2025-2026 targets and levels. Are they even going to fill out the targets before they see the levels?
NORA
I think so. The Board of Education has a strategic planning committee that sets the targets. It’s not straightforward, but the process is underway. They met in December and you can watch the meeting if you want to get a sense of what they’re thinking. They’re meeting again tomorrow, March 5, at 10:00. If you search for MCPS Board of Education meetings it takes you to the calendar and livestream.
FRIEND
Well, the scorecard was for the whole district, not school by school, anyway.
NORA
Yeah, you have to look for the Maryland School Report Card if you want to see achievement by school.
FRIEND
Is that on the school’s website? Or the MCPS website?
NORA
Neither, it’s at the Maryland State Department of Education website. Legally the state has to post it. The district and the school aren’t required by law to post it.
FRIEND
I wouldn’t think to look for it at the state. What’s the rationale for that law?
NORA
It’s a federal law. Congress wants accountability for federal money. So when public schools in a state get federal money, the state has to post information on test scores.
FRIEND
Oh, right, No Child Left Behind? That’s why kids have to take so many tests?
NORA
Sort of. No Child Left Behind got reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. People call it ESSA. Under ESSA, the states have to give tests and make the results public. But the state gets to choose the test so it matches their curricular goals, and choose what score on the test counts as “proficient.”
FRIEND
So what happens if students aren’t proficient?
NORA
It’s pretty tedious, but hardly anything.
FRIEND
How is that accountability?
NORA
The idea is that voters in the district hold the schools accountable–by making the test scores publicly available, we can vote out the district’s Board of Ed if we’re unhappy.
FRIEND
But you told me before that the Board doesn’t really run the schools.
NORA
Right. But they can fire the superintendent. That’s really a last resort though, because it doesn’t make sense to be constantly churning through superintendents and it’s hard to find great ones for a big district like MCPS. The idea is more that the superintendent knows the Board cares about voters being happy, so if he knows we care about student achievement and can see how the district is doing, he’ll respond to that incentive by prioritizing academics.
FRIEND
Democracy.
NORA
That’s the idea.
FRIEND
But if the whole theory relies on being able to see the test scores, why doesn’t ESSA require the scores to be easier to find?
NORA
ESSA is designed to give states a lot of discretion. It requires each state to submit a plan, to be approved by the U.S. Department of Education. Then–
FRIEND
Interrupting
I thought the U.S. Department of Education was closed.
NORA
It’s not. That would be illegal. But the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education moved to the Department of Labor. So maybe now they’ll review the plans? Maybe they already are. Thankfully I’m not responsible for submitting an ESSA plan so I’m not really keeping up. Even Claude didn’t know the last time I asked.
But as I was saying, the states have a lot of discretion. Maryland’s plan describes the Maryland School Report Card, which lives at the Maryland State Department of Education website, and it doesn’t say that districts or schools need to post test data. So MCPS supplies whatever data is needed for that to the state and therefore is in compliance with the law.
FRIEND
Okay, so I get that the state has to post it. But would it be illegal for MCPS to put the information on their website too?
NORA
I don’t think so, but you never know. The Maryland General Assembly sometimes makes special laws for MCPS.
FRIEND
It just seems it would be easier to find the information from the school or MCPS than from the state.
NORA
In Kentucky, each public school has to put proficiency rates right at the top of its website!
But we live in Maryland, so you should go to the Maryland School Report Card.
FRIEND
Stops walking to type on phone.
Okay, I’m pulling it up. There’s a lot. What does this mean?
NORA
Waving to neighbor.
Hi!
Sorry, Friend, I need to run.
CURTAIN
Scene 2
Nora, alone at her desk, typing on computer, talking to herself.
NORA
I really need to find those data dashboards for my post. Let me go look at the MCPS Office of Shared Accountability data dashboards site.
I see three. Evidence of Learning, Equity Accountability Model, and Individual Measures. I guess I’ll look at each of them…
Yeah, like she said, it’s an error. Let me try on my phone, maybe that’ll work.
iDashboards login? What’s that? Another login? Is it just for staff? I’m pretty sure I don’t have one of those accounts, I just have ParentVue, and myMCPS, and ParentSquare... Is there another one? I guess I could try one of those logins here, but I’m so tired.…
She slowly slumps over the desk, then falls to the floor.
CURTAIN
Questions for MCPS
The Board of Education doesn’t run schools, but they can ask MCPS questions.
If these data are supposed to hold schools publicly accountable, the information should be easy to find. Would you please post a link from each school’s website to its Maryland School Report Card? (It’s not my favorite either, but it’s what we’ve got at the moment.) While there is no legal requirement to do so, this would not require much work from the district and would help direct the public to relevant data.
Would you please fix or remove the data dashboards from the MCPS website?
Pop quiz
Where can you find school-level data on academic achievement in MCPS?
a. The school website
b. The district website
c. The state website
d. The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University
e. The Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University
f. c and e
Answer key
f is correct: both the Maryland State Department of Education and the Edunomics Lab publicly post school-level achievement data. In fact, they are the same data, just shared with different formats. The other sources listed present different types of data.
Extra credit
Try finding your child’s school on the Maryland School Report Card. If you’re in another state, your state also has a school report card; the key is to look for it at the website for the state education department rather than the school district’s website.
Try reading the school report card. Do you understand what it means? Does it give you any sense of whether the school is doing well or not? If you look up a few other schools, is it clear how they compare to one another?
Exit ticket
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