A now defunct assessment program for grades 3,5,and 8 in the state of Maryland. MSPAP stands for Maryland School Performance Assessment Program. As the name suggests, the schools, not the individual students, are scored based on the performance of the student body. Schools who met the score requirement would recieve awards and extra funding.
The tests were five days long, 3 hours a day. The subjects covered included reading, language arts, science, social studies, and mathematics. The test was scrapped for this school year onward because of many reasons. First, the test's directions were badly worded and exactly what was expected is unclear. Also, there were some test security scandals, and allegations that teachers spent all the class time teaching the test instead of the curriculum.
Although this school year onward there will be no MSPAP, it has resurrected itself this year in high schools as the Maryland High School Assessments (HSA).