It seems that you can hardly pick up a newspaper today or turn on the local TV news in Maryland without reading more doom-and-gloom about the condition of education in the state.

Even with all the negativity in education today, there are some bright spots across Maryland. These are schools that are doing a good job of educating children, even when faced with significant obstacles.

A new book published by the Maryland Public Policy Institute called "Getting Results: High-Performing, Low-Income Schools in Maryland," highlights these schools and serves as an important reminder that great education is still possible in public education today.

" Getting Results" describes 12 high-performing, high-poverty schools in Maryland. If these institutions were like other high-poverty schools in the state or nation, we would expect their test scores to be at the bottom. Instead, these schools defy the odds and produce results for their students.

Take, for example, Thomas Johnson Elementary, located in a blue-collar area in Baltimore, where 65% of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. While less than half of fourth-grade students in the city are proficient in math, more than three-quarters of the low-income students at Thomas Johnson performed at a proficient or advanced level on the latest Maryland School Assessment.

Dedicated to achieving

Reading scores are even better -- 90% of the low-income students performed at a proficient or advanced level, compared with 60% throughout the rest of the city.

What accounts for this high performance at Thomas Johnson Elementary? First is an obvious dedication to academic achievement. Visitors who step into Principal James Sasiadek's office will marvel at the large bar charts with last year's reading and math test scores.

A focus on test scores helps Sasiadek and the faculty identify deficiencies so they can resolve them. When reading proficiency lagged in past years, the school augmented its reading curriculum. Now, students will typically spend two to 21/2 hours a day reading. The school participates in the "100 Book Challenge" based in Philadelphia, which encourages students to read 100 books (or 100 units, depending on the individual student's reading level) every quarter.