Whitman earned a five-star rating on the 2024 Maryland School Report Card for the third consecutive year. The report, released in December by the Maryland State Department of Education, provides parents, teachers and students with a quantitative assessment of school performance.
The report card measures high schools in five key performance areas: school quality and student success, academic achievement, graduation rate, progress in achieving English language proficiency and readiness for post-secondary success. Each category is scored based on points earned out of the points possible, and the cumulative total determines the school’s overall score. Whitman received 78.5 out of 100 points, exceeding the 75% threshold required for a five-star rating. This score marks a 0.6% improvement from the previous year but a 5% decline from 2022.
Whitman exhibited notable improvements in the category “Progress in achieving English language proficiency,” earning 6.3 out of 10 points this year compared to 5 points the previous year. However, this score still fell short of the annual target that Maryland’s accountability system set. Whitman also slightly improved in the categories of school quality and student success, as well as readiness for post-secondary success, scoring 25.9 out of 35 points and 9.2 out of 10 points, respectively. Academic achievement met Maryland’s annual target with 23 out of 30 points, though it dropped 0.8 points from the previous year. Additionally, Whitman’s graduation rate — which scored 14.1 out of 15 points — fell 0.5 points and did not meet the annual target.
The academic achievement category reflects school performance in state English language arts and mathematics assessments. However, research indicates that many students rely on guessing during MAP Growth reading assessments, a low-stakes standardized reading test taken nationwide, including in Montgomery County in grades 3-8.
English teacher Christopher Williams said that students failing to give their full effort on state assessments can skew the results.
“There’s a lot of cynicism with things like that, and I’ve seen that a lot like, ‘You’re asking us to do all these things, but it doesn’t really have a direct bearing on my own life,’” Williams said.
Across Montgomery County, half of the 202 evaluated schools obtained four or five stars, a 1.8% improvement from the previous school year. Over 93% of MCPS schools received three or more stars, an increase of 0.8% from 2023. MCPS significantly outperformed state averages in both these metrics. However, none of the categories for overall high school performance in MCPS met their annual targets, with readiness for post-secondary success being the only category to demonstrate improvement.
In a recent statement, MCPS officials called the overall performance “disappointedly flat.” Officials outlined several initiatives to improve student performance this school year, including adopting a new literacy curriculum and implementing new Superintendent Dr. Thomas W. Taylor’s school-focused support framework. Released in December, Taylor’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request guarantees every school in MCPS will achieve a four or five-star rating by 2035. MCPS is also continuing efforts to combat chronic absenteeism while emphasizing physical and emotional safety for students and staff.
During a Dec. 3 Maryland Board of Education meeting, a task force of key Maryland education stakeholders presented recommendations for improving the state’s school accountability system used in the report card. One proposal suggested replacing the current star rating system with a “performance level” system. This system would evaluate each metric on a scale of one to four, using a planned approach with experts and key constituents to indicate schools that likely need additional support. Another recommendation called for measuring schools’ academic achievement solely on proficiency rates in the annual state English language arts and mathematics assessments. In the current system, a combination of proficiency rates and student academic growth are evaluated in the academic achievement category. Task force members suggested that student academic growth could be measured in a different category, but were divided in determining the most suitable methodology.
Task force leaders also advised conducting focus groups with other relevant stakeholders before making any changes. Additionally, many of the proposed adjustments will require federal approval and cannot take effect until the 2025-2026 school year at the earliest.
