Students in Anne Arundel County performed better in the English language arts portions of standardized state tests this year, yet scores for eighth-grade math were still low, and an achievement gap remains between the performance of white and Asian students and of black and Hispanic/Latino students.

In the majority of Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers tests, Anne Arundel students aren’t meeting or exceeding expectations, according to result data released Tuesday by the Maryland State Department of Education.

Anne Arundel students did better than the state average in 13 out of 14 tests — eighth-grade math was the exception.

“The results released today show that we have made significant strides in helping our students get to a level where they are college- and career-ready,” said Superintendent George Arlotto in a statement.

“However, they also show that we have a lot of work to do in order to help every one of our students get to that level,” he said.

This is the third year PARCC exams have been administered. The tests replaced the less rigorous Maryland School Assessment, the state said in a release, and are meant to give students, teachers and parents a better picture of how well students are prepared for college and careers.

In third-, fourth- and 10th-grade English, the majority of Anne Arundel students passed the PARCC exams. But in every other subject area, fewer than half of the students passed.

Following a statewide trend, county students did better across the board in English exams than in 2016, but for math, the results were mixed. Improvements were made in Algebra 1 and fourth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade math, while third-and fifth-grade math scores declined.

School system spokesman Bob Mosier said the system has intentionally focused on math at the middle school level, and reading at the elementary school level. Third- and fourth-grade English scores increased by about 2 percent each between 2016 and 2017.

Officials with the system believe the improvement is the result of an intentional focus on second-grade reading, Mosier said.

Scores for sixth- and seventh-grade math tests also showed improvement — a roughly 8 percentage-point increase for sixth-graders between 2016 and 2017, and a roughly 4 percentage-point increase for seventh-graders.

“Those numbers in English language arts and math are good signs for us that the work we are doing is paying off,” Mosier said.

But there is still work to do, Mosier said.

Across the state, scores for eighth-grade math were low, with 16.8 percent of students passing the exams. In Anne Arundel, the figure was even lower — just 13.3 percent of students met or exceeded expectations.

The biggest gain for Anne Arundel was in English scores for 10th-graders. In 2016, 45.5 percent of 10th-grade students exceeded or met expectations on the PARCC exam. This year, 56 percent of 10th-graders met or exceeded expectations.

The biggest decline countywide — of the subjects in which all students were tested — came in fifth-grade math.

In 2016, 44.5 percent of students met or exceeded expectations on the fifth grade math exam, while this year 38.1 percent met the same standards.

In its release, the school system recognized a dozen schools which have improved scores by more than 10 points. For the 10th-grade English exam at Severna Park High School, 37.9 percent more students passed this year. Northeast High School also showed a significant improvement over 2016 scores for the 10th-grade English exam, with 26.8 percent more students passing.

A gap also still exists between the scores of white and Asian students and their black and Hispanic/Latino classmates.

On this year’s Algebra 1 exam, 18.4 percent of black students passed, 26.9 percent of Hispanic/Latino students passed, 55.7 percent of white students passed and 64.2 percent of Asian students passed.

rpacella@capgaznews.com