Blacks in suburbs failing Md. exams: Poor results at some high schools called surprising.

Byline: Gina Davis and Liz Bowie

Sep. 6--When Maryland's top school officer proposed that the state back away from its tough high school testing program last week, one reason might have been the troubling performance of some suburban schools.

An alarming pattern of failure is surfacing: Minority students, especially African-Americans, are struggling to pass the exams in the suburban classrooms their families had hoped would provide a better education.

"It is a wake-up call to African-Americans in Maryland," said Dunbar Brooks, president of the state school board and former president of the Baltimore County school board. "For many African-Americans, the mere fact that your child attends a suburban school district does not make academic achievement automatic."

Baltimore City and its suburbs released school-by-school results last week for the Class of 2009 -- the first group that must pass the statewide High School Assessments in algebra, English, biology and government to get a diploma.

What they show is that in Baltimore County alone, nearly a third of the system's roughly two dozen high schools had pass rates of 60 percent or less. Also, high schools with predominantly African-American populations, such as Randallstown and Woodlawn, had passing rates mostly below 50 percent.

The results were similar, if not so…