[1] Of the student body, 42% are on FARMS (i.e., qualify for Free And Reduced Meals) and 22% are Title 1 (i.e., schools with high percentages of poor children).

The new appointive office continued to be supplemented later with the creation of a State Board of Education to supervise the various levels of activity in public education among the various then-22 counties of Maryland (plus Baltimore City - an independent municipality recognized with the status of a county) which all had widely different situations from the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge in the Western panhandle to the Chesapeake Bay and adjacent rural counties of the southern portion of the "Free State" to the Potomac River and the Eastern Shore (Delmarva peninsula) to the short North Atlantic Ocean coast.

The "Colored High" was later renamed Frederick Douglass High School in 1925, recalling its earliest beginnings as the independent private Douglass Institute founded in 1865, immediately after the Civil War on the 400 block of East Lexington Street, by Davis Street alley, on the north side around the corner from the Battle Monument from the War of 1812.

Founded in the 1840s, Newton's buildings served as a hospital for Union Army wounded in the recent strife.

Former Baltimorean and escaped slave Frederick Douglass himself presided over the dedication ceremonies in September 1865 and later frequently lectured at the Institute.

This slow growth of public education was later joined by Montgomery and Prince George's counties as the Washington, D.C. suburban region began reaching out into surrounding Maryland following World War II.

Maryland placed at the top of the list in "Education Week"'s annual "Quality Counts" tally, with the nation's only B+ average.

[18] The Maryland School Assessment (MSA) is a test of reading and math meeting NCLB requirements.

[19] However, Maryland is field testing the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers this spring that is made specifically for the Common Core State Standards Initiative.