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Panel touts Compass Act as shift from proficiency to student growth on Maryland report card
Summary
State education leaders and advocates told the House Ways and Means Committee that HB 15‑82 (the Compass Act) refocuses Maryland’s school report card on student growth and school quality indicators, aiming to reduce the report card’s correlation with student poverty and give clearer information to families and educators.
Chair Delegate Janelle Wilkins convened the March 12 Ways and Means hearing on HB 15‑82, the Compass Act, which state education leaders described as a staged redesign of Maryland’s accountability system.
Dr. Joshua Michael, president of the Maryland State Board of Education, told the panel the bill grew out of a multi‑year, statewide stakeholder process and the state board’s charge to align the Maryland State Department of Education around the blueprint for Maryland’s future. “House bill 15‑82 is the result of that work,” he said, explaining the bill aims to ‘‘make strategic investments to improve student outcomes and ensure a more equitable education system for every student in Maryland.”
State Superintendent Carrie Wright said the redesign would place greater emphasis on student growth and school quality and would “ensure every Maryland student has access to a world‑class education.” Wright asked the committee for a favorable report, saying the legislation is not a wholesale rewrite of accountability law but a targeted set of changes that would “better recognize growth for all students, meaningfully differentiate schools, and allow us to better deliver on the blueprint’s promise.”
Panelists argued the current school report card too often functions as a proxy for student poverty rather than reflecting classroom progress. Ike Leggett, the chair of the Accountability and Implementation Board, said the Compass Act would provide “outcome measures that are more easily understood” and therefore more usable by parents and educators.
The testimony described several technical changes in how Maryland would measure growth. Scott Marion, a national expert on assessment and accountability, explained the state’s use of student growth percentiles, which rank students against peers with similar prior performance, and noted the bill emphasizes growth among students who begin the year furthest behind (the bottom third).
Committee members asked detailed questions about how the bill would measure staffing, teacher quality and curriculum access. Delegate April Miller and others sought clarification on whether the bill uses longitudinal student tracking or cohort comparisons; MSDE officials explained Maryland’s assessments are end‑of‑course and that the system converts scores into growth percentiles to produce school‑level growth metrics.
Several legislators raised concerns that adding growth measures could be perceived as “watering down” standards. Wright and other panelists pushed back, saying the changes are intended to produce more actionable, transparent data so principals and superintendents can target resources where students need them most. On teacher evaluation, Wright said the committee rejected using local teacher‑evaluation systems in statewide accountability because Maryland lacks a single, uniform evaluation instrument across districts.
The committee did not take a vote. Chair Wilkins closed the HB 15‑82 hearing after several members requested additional follow‑up materials and visual demonstrations of how the growth metric would work at the student, school and county levels. The hearing record includes testimony from MSDE, representatives of the Maryland State Education Association, the Accountability and Implementation Board, local superintendents and assessment experts.
