Maryland students are making steady gains across the board in the classroom, but there's one subject that continues to trip up the majority of pupils.
Results from the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program test show 51.7% of students were proficient in English language arts, and just 27.1% were proficient in math.
Compared against results from 2025, both subjects showed gains of less than one percentage point.
Test scores also showed female students outperformed male students in English, while male students scored higher in math.
For the English exam, fifth and eighth graders were tied for recording the largest improvements.
In math, geometry tests returned the highest gains, with an increase of 17% from 2025 figures. However, there's a catch: the state saw fewer students sit for the test than past years.
While only students in fifth and eighth grades are administered the science test, it showed more than 30% of students are proficient in the subject.
The top five largest school districts in Maryland include Baltimore City and Montgomery, Prince George's, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties.
Although none of the largest districts claimed a top-five ranking in either the English or math test for 2026, Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties did rank in the top-10 for both categories.
The rankings showed Worcester, Carroll, Calvert, Howard and Frederick counties rounded out a listing of the top five school districts in both English and math.
Carey Wright, the state superintendent of schools, said during Tuesday's MCAP presentation that progress maintained made by Worcester County Public Schools was rooted in the district's drive to
The biggest one-year gains for English and math were by students in Garrett and Calvert counties, respectively. While Garrett County saw a 2.8% increase in English proficiency, Calvert County students saw a math proficiency increase of 4.9%.
Over four years, starting from 2022, three school districts that recorded double-digit increases in English were:
Districts that made the same advances in math between 2022 and 2026 include:
Carey Wright, the state superintendent of schools, expressed optimism about the test results during Tuesday's MCAP presentation.
The official told the Maryland State Board of Education that the "incremental gains" the MCAP results show "is exactly what you want to see."
"It's this constant, steady improvement. You're not going to see 10-point jumps in a year; that's just not the way data works," she said. "Every single data point that we're monitoring is heading in the right direction, and that has to be a key takeaway."
"Do we have areas that we need to improve upon? Absolutely. But the key point is Maryland is headed in the right direction," she said.
Officials are expected to provide more in-depth data in August.
The latest MCAP test marked its last for elementary and middle school students as the state is switching to the Maryland System of Testing Academic Readiness starting with the 2026-2027 school year. The MSTAR test is considered a much shorter exam.
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