Education Week, a national education newspaper that has given Maryland schools the top mark for the past five years, has stopped ranking the states in its annual Quality Counts report, according to the Baltimore Sun. The marks were considered the most comprehensive ranking of the nation’s schools.
Counties are proud to support Maryland’s K-12 education system by providing educational funding to county boards of education. According to the Department of Legislative Services, in fiscal 2009, county governments were the source of 48% of all funding for public education in Maryland and provided $5.5 billion to their schools in fiscal 2013. And, Maryland counties have been pleased with the State’s number one ranking in education by the national publication, Education Week, for the past several years.
The change in Education Week this year reflects a revision to its ranking criteria and a delay in the receipt of this year’s data. As described by the Sun,
The changes in the rankings were made, according to Christopher Swanson, a vice president of education research projects at Education Week, because the newspaper decided that some of its criteria were no longer relevant in measuring education trends that have developed in recent years. Swanson said Education Week also decided to not rank states this year because the Quality Counts report was held up by the federal government shutdown, which delayed the release of census data.
For more information, see the full story from the Baltimore Sun.
