Parents, students and activists pleaded with lawmakers Wednesday to scrap Maryland’s high school graduation exams, arguing thousands of high schoolers would fail, many of them because of poor teaching.

“The High School Assessments are a detriment to students, teachers and the school,” Peter Lorenz, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, told lawmakers. “Some are taught to the test and then don’t have the necessary skills.”

The state school board could no longer require students to pass the High School Assessments to graduate, under a bill sponsored by Del. Jay Walker, D-Prince George’s.

In a nod to the close Democratic presidential primary, Walker played a video of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama criticizing standardized tests.

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“We want the freedom to do more than just teach to the test because we want our children to learn more about music, science, art and history,” Obama said in a clip projected before the House Ways and Means Committee.

In the era of high-stakes testing and the federal No Child Left Behind Act, school districts nationwide have slashed time spent on social studies, art and music to make room for more reading and math, according to a recent study by the Center on Education Policy.

“Eighty-five percent of teachers I talk to do not like the test,” Walker said. “We need to wake up and do the right thing by our kids because I feel we have let them down.”

But state schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick, county superintendents and other education administrators defended the High School Assessments as the only way to ensure students learn.

Students must pass rigorous tests to compete globally, said Joseph Hairston, Baltimore County superintendent.

“We believe the high school diplomas should mean something,” Grasmick said.

“We are perpetuating a fraud to give a high school student a diploma only for them to face the work world or higher education to find their preparation has had no substance.”

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com