The State Board indicated its intention that the standards be rigorous but attainable. Using a consensus of what educators and the public expected from their schools, Maryland devised a range of satisfactory and excellent performance standards. While encouraging schools to strive for high achievement, the Board also recognized that schools need time to make real improvements. During two weeks each May, students work up to 109 minutes per day for one week on the assessment. Each student is given one-third of the assessment.
Results are available to local schools and school systems in the late fall.
Reports to the public on each school's and school system's progress toward the State standards are essential to the accountability function of the Maryland School Performance Program. What Maryland is doing is exactly what we would like to see the rest of the nation do.