No evidence leaders acted improperly, inspector finds

Complaints about altered test score data led to investigation

Maryland’s inspector general for education says there is no evidence state leaders acted improperly in altering some test score data files on the education department website to comply with federal privacy laws for students.

The investigation closely examined the Maryland State Department of Education’s handling of data collected a year ago during the state’s first full standardized testing cycle since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The highly anticipated test scores for the state’s 24 school systems were released in January, kicking off months of news coverage and handwringing by lawmakers.

The report released Monday evening comes several weeks after eight prominent Republicans from Maryland’s House of Delegates complained that the state education department was hiding scores from failing schools.

Delegates Lauren Arikan, Brian Chisholm, Mark Fisher, Robin Grammer Jr., Nicholaus Kipke, Matthew Morgan, Ryan Nawrocki and Kathy Szeliga exchanged a flurry of letters in late April with State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury over the education department’s decision to remove some of the data files.

Maryland education officials said at the time that some data was published in error and that it adjusted the columns showing the number of students tested, as well as the percent considered proficient, so that a “reasonable person in the school community” could not identify individual students. Those adjustments brought the data back into compliance with federal requirements under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act governing the release of student information, state education officials said. The inspector general agreed.

During the legislative session, Delegates Szeliga and Nawrocki successfully added language to the state’s budget requiring the education department to produce a report by July 1 outlining a plan to address math proficiency in the 2023-24 school year. The department also must implement accountability measures should school systems or individual schools fail to improve math scores within two academic years.

Delegates said they first learned of the changes from Fox45 s Project Baltimore, which used the test score data files to conclude that more than 20 Baltimore City schools saw no student achieve proficiency in math. While math assessments are typically administered to students in grades three through eight, as well as those enrolled in Algebra I, geometry and Algebra II, not every student sits for testing.

Fox45’s coverage of the scores has included comments from Jovani Patterson, a plaintiff in a pending lawsuit against the Baltimore City Public School System that claims the district has misused public funding by failing to educate its students. Patterson has close ties to the news organization’s parent company, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. He chairs a political action committee called Officials with People for Elected Accountability and Civic Engagement that is backed heavily by Sinclair Chairman David Smith.

Choudhury has called Fox45 s news coverage “misleading” and suggested the news organization manufactured a news piece implying the the education department was “hiding information from the public” and “staging a cover up” by altering the data.

Sinclair did not respond late Tuesday to a request for comment.

The tensions between education leaders and Fox45 has at times resulted in unusually direct responses from government officials, such as a 44-page letter from Choudhury with attachments released in early March.

Baltimore City school leaders also took issue with the coverage in early February, stating “student achievement is more complex than quoting numbers from a spreadsheet.”

Officials pointed out that school districts nationwide saw declines in math results between 2019 and 2022 because of the pandemic.

Inspector General for Education Richard Henry confirmed that Choudhury acted within the scope of his authority to release the data again in a way that could not be used to identify an individual student.