Author: demosgen

Prince George’s Association for TAG Supports County Executive’s Proposal to Fund PGCPS

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IMG_6359The following is a statement from the board of the Prince George’s Association for Talented and Gifted Education, republished here with permission. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the owner of this website, Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools (PGCABS).

To view this statement on the PGTAG website, go here.

Statement from PGTAG Board

Supporting the County Executive’s  FY’2015-16 Budget to Fund PGCPS’ Strategic Plan

April 12, 2015

Prince George’s County Association for Talented and Gifted Education

(PGTAG), during its April board meeting, agreed to support County Executive Rushern Baker’s fiscal year 2015-16 budget to fund PGCPS’ strategic plan.

For far too long, our school system has been requesting only the local funding for what it thought it might receive vs. what is really required to improve the quality of PGCPS. This practice of requesting the minimal funding needed to continue with the status quo is called “maintenance of effort.”

Our students deserve more than “maintenance of effort.”  This constricted funding stream for our public education system has denied PGCPS the ability to gain momentum on a host of educational priorities critically needed to create and maintain the kind of quality education system that is needed for the children of our county.

We don’t take our decision making—to support funding the budget through the lifting of our local property tax cap—lightly. But the cap is partially to blame for our limited success in the past. The four-decades long cap on property taxes means that we’ve been funding schools at the same percentage of dollars as we were in 1978.

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One Local Middle School’s Testing Calendar

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A local middle school teacher has created a calendar to demonstrate how her school has scheduled the tests required by Prince George’s County and the state of Maryland into the 2014-2015 academic year. Out of 180 school days, 55 days feature some sort of standardized testing (loosely defined here as mandatory non-teacher-generated tests) scheduled for some subset of students in the school.

The calendar for the entire school year is posted below. Scroll to the end for brief descriptions of mandatory tests.

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Prince George’s Schools CEO Says Tax Hike Will Lift Schools

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From WUSA9, reported by Scott Broom, April 22, 2015.

For the complete story, go here.

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (WUSA9) — “It’s as much as a guarantee as I can give you,” said Prince George’s County Schools CEO Kevin Maxwell when asked about his strategic plan for Prince George’s County Schools.

Maxwell’s plan promises to lift the county’s long-suffering school system from near the bottom of state ranks to within the top-10 by 2020.

Not a single member of the Council has committed to support the tax proposal which will be voted on in the county budget by June 1.

Click here to continue reading and to watch the video coverage at the WUSA9 site.

$2 Billion Backlog in Repairs and Upgrades, Master Plan Support Project Identifies Renovation Priorities

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

The department of Capital Programs has identified $2 billion in needed PGCPS facility repairs and upgrades. With the current rate of annual funding for repairs — roughly $130 million per year — it will take more than 20 years to clear the backlog.

Begun in the fall of 2014, the Master Plan Support Project (MPSP) was designed to prioritize school construction and renovation projects, considering the mission, condition, and function of each facility. To assist with this project, PGCPS awarded a $1.47 million consulting contract to the program management firm Brailsford & Dunlavey in October 2014. Working with PGCPS staff, Brailsford & Dunlavey consultant teams have visited schools built before 1999, evaluating building conditions in order to update the Facilities Condition Index from the 2012 Parsons Report (go here for the PowerPoint summary of the 2012 report). The final MPSP report, including the firm’s recommendations to the Board of Education, will be posted in May 2015.

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Board of Education Violates Open Meetings Act

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From the Sentinel, by reporter Holden Wilen, published on April 15, 2015.

For the complete story, go here.

UPPER MARLBORO – The Prince George’s County Board of Education will announce at its next meeting it violated the Open Meetings Act after the Open Meetings Compliance Board (OMCB) ruled the Board’s staff failed to provide copies of minutes to a county resident.

Thea Scarato, an activist who opposes cell phone towers, said she was attempting to track the history of the school system’s cell phone tower policy by making open records requests and looking through minutes of meetings by the school board and its subsidiary committees.

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AP Exam Participation Increases, 40% of All Passing Exams Are from Eleanor Roosevelt HS

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

Over a six year period, Prince George’s County has made small but significant gains in performance on Advanced Placement exams. The percentage of AP exams receiving a score of 3, 4, or 5 in 2014 is virtually identical to what it was in 2008 and slightly higher than it was in 2013: 27.5% in 2008, 26.3% in 2013, 27% in 2014. However, over the same time period, the percentage of 9th-12th grade students taking an AP exam has steadily increased from 11.4% in 2008 to 16.8% in 2014. This represents a 47% increase in the participation rate and a 25% increase in the raw number of students taking AP exams. This is certainly good news for the county: a comparable passing rate with a much larger percentage of participating students.

The percentage of exams receiving a score of 3, 4, or 5 (usually considered to be passing scores) is still much lower than national and state averages. By a large margin, the passing rate for AP Foreign Language exams (73.7% in 2014) exceeded that of all other subject categories.

Of the 23 high schools in the county sytem, only Eleanor Roosevelt High School’s AP exam passing rate (63.3%) equaled or exceeded the Maryland state average (61%). Eleanor Roosevelt HS accounts for 40% of all exams in PGCPS receiving a grade of 3, 4, or 5.

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Laurel HS Teacher Testifies at Board of Education about PARCC Testing

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The following was presented as a public comment at the Prince George’s County Board of Education meeting on March 26, 2015. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools.


Good evening. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak tonight.

I am Cheryl Davis and have been involved in education for over 25 years.  I am an English teacher at Laurel High School (with 13 years of experience teaching Advanced Placement English); I have been a business writing consultant; I have been an adjunct professor; and I have even been a home and hospital teacher. This year and last, I have seen more disruption in the education of my students–caused by  poor Common Core Standards implementation and unreasonable testing requirements–than I have in over two decades  of teaching. Continue reading →

Graduation Rate in PGCPS Improves to Record High

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

The overall four-year graduation rate has increased by 2.47 percentage points to 76.59%, the highest graduation rate on record, according to this PGCPS press release. The improvement builds on a gain of 1.25 percentage points made the previous year. Seven high schools saw gains of three or more percentage points in their graduation rates. Central High School made the largest gain with an increase of 8.72 percentage points.

The dropout rate for the four-year adjusted cohort is 16.73%, down from 18.50% in 2013 and 19.53% in 2013.

The PGCPS graduation rate is still well below the Maryland state average of 86.39%, but four schools met or exceeded the state average: Bowie High School, Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Gwynn Park High School and Charles Herbert Flowers High School.

In an August 2014 news release, it was announced that online credit recovery would be made available at all high schools in an effort to boost graduation rates.