Anne Arundel County Public Schools

The Anne Arundel Public School system has made impressive strides over the last eight years in student achievement:

However, as with any school system, challenges remain.  African-American and Hispanic students consistently do not score as well as Caucausian students, and far too many of our students of all ethnicities are dropping out before graduation.  In addition, very few of our students are achieving the in-depth understanding of science that is conducive to a scientific career.

Achievement Gap

 African-American and Hispanic students consistently underperform white students.

 Unfortunately, the gap widens over time.     

Science Knowledge

 While a reasonable percentage of our students are proficient in science, alarmingly few show advanced levels of scientific understanding. 

 Graduation Rates

EdWeek Research Center estimates that 24.8% of the students who should have graduated as part of Anne Arundel County's high school class of 2007 did not do so.  While there are undoubtedly some year-to-year fluctuations in the number of incoming 9th graders, one can get a rough idea of high school drop-out rates by comparing the number of students enrolled in Anne Arundel schools in 9th versus 12th grade.  Sadly, it appears that about 20% of the Class of 2011 had already disappeared from our classrooms by October, 2010. 

It is particularly alarming to look at the figures for minority students.  Roughly 45.7% of Hispanic boys, 36.5% of Hispanic girls, and 27.5% of African-American boys in this class have apparently already dropped out of school.  In a world where it is very difficult to support oneself without at least a high school education, it is very disturbing to have such a high percentage of our students not completing high school. 

Want to Help?

If you would like to improve Anne Arundel schools, please join parents working together on educational issues on the AACPSForum.com discussion board.  

Anne Arundel CAC School Survey Results

When Make Maryland Great's President was Chair of Anne Arundel's Countywide Citizen Advisory Committee in March 2011, the committee conducted a comprehensive survey to learn what issues most concerned AAC parents and citizens about our public school system.  There were five concerns that more than half of the 4,263 respondents said they were very concerned about:  large class sizes (60.4%), bullying in school (55.9%), the need for better science education (52.7%), the desire to have an elected Board of Education (51.2%), and the emphasis on test taking (50.2%).  In addition, 64.2% of African-American respondents were concerned that minority students are not achieving at the level of Caucasian students.  Read the full report by clicking on the Downloadable File link below:

Downloadable File(s): 

CAC Survey 2011.pdf