A Maryland school district鈥檚 curriculum and classroom assessments represent what teachers need to help students reach ambitious academic goals and succeed on state tests, concludes a report issued by a group pushing for greater student achievement.
The report, is available from . (Requires .)
The Montgomery County public schools鈥� curriculum is 鈥渃learly articulated鈥� and 鈥渜uite comprehensive,鈥� according to the Washington-based Achieve. Moreover, the classroom exams are of 鈥渉igh quality and align to鈥� district and state standards, the report released this month says.
In the past six years, Achieve has conducted similar reviews of 15 states鈥� standards and tests. The Montgomery County study marks the first time it has pored over district policies designed to ensure students are able to meet state demands.
The 139,000-student district provides a model for other education systems that are trying to satisfy new state testing and accountability demands put on them by federal and state laws, a top Achieve official said last week.
鈥淢ontgomery County is an illustration of how a partnership [between state and local officials] could work,鈥� said Matthew Gandal, the executive vice president for the nonprofit group led by governors and business leaders.
In the division of labor, as envisioned by Achieve, the state sets broad learning goals and offers a test to judge how well students are meeting them. The district then builds a curriculum and produces a series of classroom tests to ensure that students are taking incremental steps toward achieving the state goals.
The review of Montgomery County鈥檚 resources 鈥減ointed out how important this kind of exercise is going to be across the country,鈥� Mr. Gandal said.
For Montgomery County, the review by national experts helps administrators identify parts of the instructional program that need beefing up and gives them confidence to help other Maryland districts meet the demands of the new state testing system.
鈥淚t was important for us to have an independent set of eyes to give us feedback,鈥� said Brian J. Porter, a spokesman for the suburban Washington district.
New Territory
District officials commissioned the $195,000 Achieve study to get a sense of whether the school system was headed in the right direction in its 2-year-old effort to overhaul its instructional program, Mr. Porter said.
Achieve reviewed reading and mathematics curricula for K-12 classes as well as countywide tests given in high school English, algebra, and geometry courses.
In its earlier reviews of states鈥� policies, Achieve said many curriculum frameworks lacked specificity. Montgomery County鈥檚 curriculum, by contrast, is 鈥渆xplicit about the knowledge and skills students should learn in each grade,鈥� the Achieve report says.
Likewise, the high school exams are so closely aligned with state expectations that they give students a sense of how they will perform on state exams, it adds.
Yet while Achieve calls the curriculum 鈥渞igorous and reasonable,鈥� the report says it still falls short of what鈥檚 expected in other countries whose students achieve at the highest levels on international studies.
For example, the report says, the district should consider moving many portions of Algebra 1 down to the 8th grade, which is when students in many high-achieving countries learn algebra.
The district currently has about half its 8th graders completing Algebra 1, Mr. Porter said.
Montgomery County includes some of the country鈥檚 wealthiest suburban areas, but also has growing poor and immigrant communities. 鈥淭he question is: How will districts that don鈥檛 have the resources or expertise handle this?鈥� Mr. Gandal said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think states can do it all themselves; neither can all the districts. But the answer can鈥檛 be, 鈥榃e won鈥檛 do it.鈥欌��
