How did Maryland schools perform?

Preliminary ratings, graduation rates and dropout rates released

As Maryland finalizes its school star ratings this month, education leaders are forecasting a majority of the state’s public schools have held steady though about a quarter of them lost a star in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

State board of education members on Tuesday reviewed preliminary results for the state’s school rating system, known as the Maryland Report Card, offering a new glimpse at the pandemic’s lingering impact on public education during the 2021-22 academic year. Final results for each public school are slated for release March 9.

The state’s star rating system for schools is tied to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, a bipartisan 2015 replacement for the No Child Left Behind Act. Maryland’s accountability system awards each school up to five stars based on a formula that aims to measure overall performance.

Administrators say the preliminary results show most Maryland schools — about 62% — managed to hold onto their stars during the pandemic, with 26% losing a star and just 11% gaining a star in 202122 compared to 2018-19, the last year for which the ratings were awarded. About 48% of all schools earned a four- or five-star rating, with middle schools performing lower than elementary and high schools. More than 75% of state schools earned three or more stars.

Although Maryland has maintained an accountability system for measuring school performance for two decades, the passage of the new federal law prompted the state to expand its evaluation to include other factors besides

standardized test scores, such as student absenteeism, growth, high school graduation rates, quality of curriculum and the progress of English language learners.

The state launched the redesigned system during the 2017-18 academic year. It released results again for the 2018-19 cycle before pausing the accountability measures due to the pandemic.

The U.S. Department of Education has granted states, including Maryland, some flexibility in reporting the accountability measures for the 2021-22 school year. The state made one-time adjustments to how it rated schools on factors including growth and chronic absenteeism, both of which were affected significantly by the pandemic.

State education officials also presented data Tuesday on graduation and dropout rates for the 2021-22 academic year. More than 59,700 students graduated from Maryland public schools last year, a figure that has held relatively steady over the past five years.

The class of 2022 began their high school careers during the 2018-19 academic year. In the years that followed, the majority of their high school experience was impacted by the pandemic. Schools first closed in March 2020, with most instruction continuing virtually during the 2020-21 academic year. The 2021-22 year also was impacted by frequent quarantines and chronic absenteeism in schools.

State officials say the graduation rate decreased slightly in 2021-22 to 86.3%, down about a percentage point from the 87.2% graduation rate measured the previous year. Prior to the pandemic in 2018-19, Maryland’s graduation rate was 87%. And the persistent trend of Hispanic and Black students graduating at lower rates than the state as a whole continued in 2021-22.

School systems across the Baltimore region documented graduation rates in 2021-22 that spanned from last in the state to among the top performers. Baltimore City’s graduation rate was 68.7%, placing it at the bottom of the state’s 24 school systems. Baltimore County graduated 84.5% of its students, falling just short of the state graduation rate as a whole. The graduation rates were 88.6% in Anne Arundel County, 88.7% in Harford County and 93.1% in Carroll County. Howard County had the state’s third-highest graduation rate at 94.6% in 2021-22.

Students also dropped out of school at a higher rate compared to the prior year. Maryland schools’ dropout rate for the 202122 school year increased to 8.5% — similar to pre-pandemic rates — compared to 7.4% in 2020-21. Baltimore City and County schools again reported dropout rates that exceeded the state’s average as a whole, reporting 17.8% and 9.6%, respectively.

“This cohort is one for the history books in terms of who they are and what they went through,” state Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury said. “We have work to do.”