Maryland to overhaul school ratings to reduce income bias

Maryland will release its annual school ratings on Thursday morning, but the state is preparing to fundamentally rewrite the system that generates those scores. The current method, known as the Maryland School Report Card, assigns stars based on a mix of standardized test results, attendance, staff surveys, and curriculum breadth. State education leaders argue that this framework fails to distinguish between a school’s actual effectiveness and the economic status of its students.

Josh Michael, president of the Maryland State Board of Education, stated that school ratings currently function as a proxy for family income. Schools serving higher-income populations consistently earn high ratings, while those with a majority of low-income students receive lower scores. Michael noted that if the state rated schools strictly by family income, the resulting star ratings would be nearly identical to those produced by the current multifactor system.

The new rating system will increase the weight placed on how well schools help struggling students close the achievement gap. It will also place greater emphasis on state test performance, specifically through pass rates. Under the proposed changes, schools would receive credit for moving low-income students toward grade level, even if those students do not reach the passing threshold on the state assessment.

A committee comprising county superintendents, teachers, administrators, and state school board members is currently evaluating which metrics remain under the direct control of a school. Scott Marion, a former executive director for the Center for Assessment who is advising the group, said the committee is determining whether specific measures are overly influenced by socioeconomic factors rather than school performance.

The current Report Card calculates scores using academic achievement, academic progress, English language acquisition rates, attendance, and curriculum offerings. Academic factors previously accounted for 65% of the total points available for star ratings. The state legislature recently mandated that education leaders increase this share to 70%. Michael described the shift as an effort to focus the Report Card more heavily on academic measures.

The U.S. Department of Education instructed Maryland last year to remove the well-rounded curriculum from the rating calculation. Nearly all schools met that benchmark, rendering the metric ineffective for differentiation. That factor was originally included eight years ago to prevent schools from neglecting subjects like art and social studies in favor of tested math and reading skills. The committee has already discarded that measure.

Attendance and chronic absence rates are expected to remain in the new system. Chronic absence is defined as missing 10% of school days in a year. The committee is also developing a new metric to evaluate staff quality, which would include data on teacher absence frequency.

A proposed measure called the opportunity measure would track students who score in the bottom third of their grade. The system would award points if these students show performance improvements from one year to the next. This approach aims to reward schools for generating growth among their lowest-performing students.

Maryland School Superintendent Carey Wright has called for a more transparent public reporting system. The state school board plans to vote on the proposed changes during the winter and spring. The new rating formula is scheduled for implementation by next fall, coinciding with the release of the next set of star ratings.

The changes address a long-standing criticism that the current ratings punish schools with high concentrations of poverty. By shifting weight toward growth and opportunity measures, the state aims to provide families with a clearer view of which schools are making the most effective use of available resources to support student learning.