Bethesda Brunswick Burtonsville Bowie College Pk. Greenbelt Hyattsville Kensington Landover Lanham Largo Mont. Vlge. New Car'ton Olney Port Towns Poolesville Potomac Riverdale Rockville Silver Spr. The Maryland State Board of Education voted last week to delay by at least two years the timeline for making the tests a graduation requirement. The board also left open the possibility that the tests would not become a graduation requirement until even later if the state fails to provide adequate funding for tutoring elementary and middle school students who need remedial help.
Percentiles compare students' performance to others who took the same test.
Following a recommendation by state Schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, the board essentially voted to proceed with the tests as scheduled, but scores for the first two classes will only be recorded on transcripts rather than linked to graduation. Before last Wednesday's meeting in Baltimore, board members considered delaying or scrapping the proposed tests, which are intended to be more challenging than the low-level Maryland Functional Tests now required for graduation. State education department officials have estimated that more than one-third of students will fail the test when it is first administered, with higher failure rates expected in school districts that have large minority populations, such as Baltimore city. The tests, which have been field-tested at select schools since January, will go through trials at all schools next year in preparation for their implementation the following year. Nearly 70 percent of Maryland businesses in a recent survey said they were dissatisfied with the communications skills of high school graduates, Streckfus said.