Report Card For County Middle Schools - Any Answers?
As the school year for county students is set to begin next week, state data reports indicate that "four of nine Harford County middle schools and one of 32 elementary schools failed to meet federal reading and math goals this year." The list singles out Aberdeen, Edgewood and Magnolia middle schools. The Restoration Academy made the list for attendance issues, and William Paca Elementary School made it for not meeting it’s special education goals.
But let’s focus on the three middle schools on the list. What can we do to improve these schools? What have we tried, and why haven’t we been successful? These three middle schools are the three that are closest to Aberdeen Proving Ground, which as you know, is expected to receive thousands of new jobs due to BRAC. They also have a bad reputation (that is mostly unwarranted, in my opinion), and this news certainly doesn’t help. But lets look deeper into the data to find the real problems…
All three schools fail in proficiency for special education students. Magnolia’s only blight is for special education reading. Magnolia was also on the list for special education back in 2003. While this is definitely a concern, they made progress between 2004 and 2006, so hopefully they can turn the tide back in their favor this year. Aberdeen Middle failed in special education math, along with performance for those on free or reduced meal plans in reading and math. This is the first year Aberdeen Middle has been on the list for free/reduced meal plan students, so again, hopefully things will turn around next year.
This leaves us with Edgewood Middle. Edgewood shares it’s special education woes with Magnolia, and it’s meal plan student problems with Aberdeen. But what it really troubling is that African American students are not meeting requirement for reading and math. The entire school is marked as deficient for math proficiency. Also, special education is below performance for the third consecutive year.
Again I ask, what do we need to do to bring these school’s performance up? More funding for special education appears to obvious, but beyond that, can throwing money around help the students who are behind? Is it the teachers? Is it the parents?
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