More of me playing around with data and publishing it to try to remember what I read. I put these maps on the same scale, with 20% being the lowest and 73% being the highest. Data was not available for Dorchester County.

Disadvantaged Graduates

The map for disadvantaged students’ immediate college enrollment rates from various local school systems in Maryland for the cohort year 2021-22 reveals significant disparities. Among the local school systems, Howard County had the highest enrollment rate at 45%. Following Howard County, Frederick and Harford counties had notable enrollment rates of 38%. On the other end of the spectrum, Worcester County had the lowest enrollment rate at just 20%, with Somerset County close behind at 22%. Larger school systems like Baltimore City and Prince George’s County showed relatively low enrollment rates at 31%. This data highlights the challenges faced by disadvantaged students in accessing higher education immediately after high school graduation, with enrollment rates generally lagging behind those of their non-disadvantaged peers, which is shown below. Overall 34% of disadvantaged graduates enrolled immediately after high school.

NoT disadvantaged Graduates

The map shows the immediate college enrollment rates for high school graduates from various local school systems in Maryland for the cohort year 2021-22, segmented by economic status and focusing on those who are not disadvantaged. Among the local school systems, Howard County had the highest percentage of high school graduates enrolled in college immediately, with a rate of 73%. Montgomery County followed with a 69% enrollment rate. On the other hand, Somerset County exhibited the lowest enrollment rate at 27%, significantly lower than the state average. Other notable observations include the relatively high enrollment rates in Frederick and Harford Counties, both at 61%, and the lower-than-average rates in Prince George's County at 43% and Baltimore City at 45%. Overall, the state average enrollment rate for not disadvantaged students was 58%. This data highlights the disparities in immediate college enrollment rates across different local school systems in Maryland.

Overall OBServations

Overall, the data reflects significant disparities in immediate college enrollment rates across different local school systems and between disadvantaged and not disadvantaged students. Statewide, the enrollment rate for not disadvantaged students was 58%, while disadvantaged students had a lower rate of 34%. Howard and Montgomery Counties consistently showed high enrollment rates for both groups, while Somerset and Worcester Counties showed some of the lowest rates. The substantial gap in enrollment rates between disadvantaged and not disadvantaged students across nearly all local school systems indicates a widespread issue that needs to be addressed to ensure equitable access to higher education opportunities for all students in Maryland.

Statewide of the 2021-2022 cohort, nearly half (49%) of Maryland public high school graduates immediately enrolled in college. Howard County Public Schools had the highest percentage of graduates immediately enrolling in college at 68%. Somerset County Public Schools had the lowest percentage of graduates immediately enrolling in college at 25%.

I have been busy with work, but now I have a pocket of time to dig into reading reports again. So you might see a few posts from me.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the official application for financial assistance for
postsecondary education from the federal government. States, individual colleges and universities, and private scholarship programs use this information as well. Financial aid includes grants, educational loans, and work-study programs.

During the 2023 session, Senator Ellis put in a bill (Senate Bill 127) to require the Maryland Longitudinal Data System (MLDS) Center to report specified student FAFSA data to the Maryland General Assembly. MLDS must disaggregate the information by county and other student subgroups. I wrote the fiscal and policy note for the the bill. The bill was enacted as Chapter 688 of 2023.

FAFSA Completion for Maryland Aid

This first map shows the FAFSA completion rates by high school graduates by February 28, 2022. FAFSAs completed by this date are in time for consideration for the March 1 deadline for Maryland State financial aid. The map shows that Howard County Public School System has the highest FAFSA completion rate, at 57%, while Allegany County Public School System has the lowest, at 30%.

Due to federal data suppression requirements, the U.S. Department of Education does not report some FAFSA submissions and completions at the school level. The total is underreported since these data are used to calculate the overall local school system completion rates.

FAFSA Completion FOr Fall Enrollment

By fall enrollment, high school graduates from Howard County Public School System and Kent County Public School System have the highest FAFSA completion rates at 68%. While Dorchester County Public School System and Washington County Public School System have the the lowest FAFSA completion rates at 47%. Between February and August, the Allegany County Public School System had the highest percentage increase in FAFSAs completed (75%). While Howard County Public Schools, which had the highest FAFSA completion rate in February, had the lowest increase in FAFSAs completed (25%).

Today I decided to take a quick look at the percentage of all students who score proficient on the Statewide science assessment.

I also did the same map for economically disadvantaged students.

After looking at the maps I put them on the same color scale.

I believe this shows all test takers, both first-time and retakers, I wish they would separate them.

The first map below shows the percent of all test takers who were proficient (level 4 or 5) on the Grade 10 English/Language Arts Exam for the 2020-2021 academic year. The second map shows the percent of economically disadvantaged students who were proficient on the same exam during the same period. The all-student map includes the economically disadvantaged students. The definition of economically disadvantaged is not immediately clear from the data. The definition was not included in the “definitions” section of the website. There is a separate measure, which includes more students, for “FARMS”-(free-and-reduced priced meal.” I assume that it is students “eligible” for free-and-reduced priced meals, but that is not specified either. The third map shows the percentage of non-economically disadvantaged students who were proficient on the exam.

I put these maps together to see if there were schools that had high test scores for the full student body but were less successful for economically disadvantaged students. The problem I ran into, which isn’t really shown in the maps, is that the schools with really high test scores overall, like Severa Park, have only a few economically disadvantaged students overall.

All Students

Economically Disadvantaged Students

Non-economically Disadvantaged

I found a new dataset today. It shows the number and percentage of students that are promoted in high school every year.

The map shows the percentage of 2020-2021 grade 9 students that were not promoted to grade 10.

Played around with showing Non-FARMS High School graduates who earn a college degree by age 25. The Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center publishes the data as a percentage of high school graduates that enroll in college. I used their published numbers to see the total high school graduates. I was originally interested in FARMs students, but the data was repressed for most of the schools.

As always this is just me exploring the data that is available. I am trying to make sense of the data and be able to remember the information.

I am exploring using a map to display college enrollment data for Anne Arundel County. Unfortunately, I only have a shapefile that includes Crofton HS, which is a new school, so the boundaries do not reflect the boundaries at the time. The are other specialized high schools in the county that are not reflected in the data. Since I haven’t done mapping in a while I had to remember how to upload the data, but I figured it out pretty quickly.

This is the September 22, 2021, update of the map that shows that total reported cases by Anne Arundel County Public Schools by feeder system. The map was last published on September 21, 2021.

According to the data published by the Anne Arundel County School System on September 22, 2021, there are 1,335 students and 29 staff currently quarantining. There are 241 active cases: 223 students and 18 staff. In total there have been 303 cases this school year.

This is the September 21, 2021, update of a previous map.