BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
OUTPERFORMING
Top 10% of MD schools after controlling for student poverty
Actual proficiency
79.5%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
65.6%
based on MD schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
+13.9pp
above demographic expectation
What this means: About 80% of students here test proficient in math and reading, well above the roughly 66% typical for Maryland schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations ranks schools against others at the same poverty level, not by raw scores, so a school can post high scores and still fall short of its prediction, or post lower scores and still beat it. This school clears its prediction by about 14 points, placing it in Maryland's top 10%.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual.
How this is calculated →What is MCAP?
Maryland public-school students take the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) in English Language Arts and Math each spring (grades 3-8 + grade 10). MCAP uses a 4-level performance scale, with Levels 3 and 4 indicating proficiency.
What does "% Proficient (Levels 3-4)" mean?
It is the percentage of students at the school who scored at Performance Level 3 ("Proficient") or Level 4 ("Distinguished") on MCAP. Levels 3 and 4 are MCAP's grade-level benchmark — top 2 of 4 performance levels. A higher number is better.
What does 88.0% mean for English Language Arts at Pinewood Elementary?
It means about 88.0 percent of students tested at Pinewood Elementary performed at grade level or above on the MCAP English Language Arts test in 2024-25. The statewide average for Maryland that year was 50.6%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Maryland, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Maryland State Department of Education, Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP). School-level Performance Level data scraped from the Maryland Report Card SPA. Headline metric is the cumulative 'Proficient or Distinguished' rate (Performance Levels 3 + 4 on MCAP's 4-level scale).
How often is it updated?
MCAP is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.
