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Maryland schools
Funding, space hold up preschool for all in Md.
- Finding funding and space remain a stumbling block for many counties hoping to create a universal preschool by 2014.
As scores improve, racial achievement gap persists in Montgomery schools
- Sweeping efforts in recent years to close the racial achievement gap in Montgomery County schools have resulted in higher standardized test scores for nearly all students. But hidden within the ranks of those who pass, the same old disparities exist.
Superintendent under fire for comments about district
- The rapid spread of an e-mail across Montgomery County this week prompted outrage among parents who opened it to learn that school Superintendent Jerry Weast refers to his district as “the cream of the crap.”
Montgomery County lawmakers pressure schools to recycle more
- Poor recycling habits in Montgomery County schools have inspired the green county’s lawmakers to demand educators clean up their acts.
Demographic shifts may cut success of Md., Va. schools
- The success of public schools in Maryland and Virginia could be threatened in coming years as demographic shifts send shock waves throughout the same districts that are currently outperforming much of the nation, according to a new report released by Atlanta-based Southern Regional Education Board.
Middle schoolers need longer days, foreign languages, state report says
- The weak link in students’ education — middle school — is getting an overhaul, with a report advocating that sixth-grade students learn foreign languages and officials extend the school day.
State wealth hurt by students failing to graduate
- Maryland’s economy could have gained $5.6 billion in wages, taxes and productivity if all the students who began high school in 2004 graduated with their class in 2008, a research organization reported Monday.
Flunking state exams could mean seniors don’t graduate
- As today’s final school bell rings, marking the start of summer in the Maryland suburbs, the countdown begins for thousands of rising seniors who still haven’t passed state high school exams, required for the first time next year in order to graduate.
Merit of teachers’ ‘highly qualified’ designation questioned by experts
- Students in suburban Maryland schools are more likely now than they were six years ago to be taught by a teacher deemed “highly qualified” but experts worry the designation may be misleading and meaningless.
Teachers and experts worry about alternative to graduation tests
- Educators are worried a last-ditch plan to save Maryland high schoolers unable to pass graduation tests will place unfair demands upon teachers and schools while resulting in meaningless “back-door diplomas” handed out disproportionately to poor and minority students.
Even before kindergarten, some already lag in readiness
- Poor children, minorities and kids who don’t attend preschool lag behind peers in readiness for kindergarten, even as Maryland children overall are better prepared, new research shows.
Tight funding leads school systems to follow difficult financial road
- Driven by tanking revenues and years of easy spending, school systems in suburban Maryland have been forced to plunder savings and whittle down budgets by measures not seen in more than a decade.
