Nicole Raz
WMAL

ROCKVILLE — (WMAL) New testing results are in for Maryland public schools. Montgomery County elementary and middle school students are outperforming their peers across the state.

Montgomery county students outperformed the state average in both reading and math at the elementary and middle grade levels–but the overall results were pretty modest, says Bill Rienhard with the state department of education.

“There are a lot of school systems that are above the state average, and Montgomery County Schools is one of them,” he said.

The new assessments are harder, he says, which will help to evaluate whether students are prepared to move forward to the next grade level as well as possibly help to close the achievement gap.

“If we didn’t have these annual tests, we wouldn’t know that certain groups are struggling. We’ve certainly had African-American students and Hispanic students scoring below Asian students and White students–that’s been going on for a number of years. But, with this new tests were sort of able to zero in on where those issues lie a lot better than with previous exams,” he said.

Copyright 2015 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Montgomery County Public Schools)