As part of its efforts to improve services for children, birth to age five, the Maryland Joint Committee on Children, Youth, and Families charged the State Department of Education with identifying and implementing, by school year 2000-01, an early childhood assessment system that provides baseline information on children entering kindergarten. This report provides state- and county-level school baseline information for school year 2001-02, the first year that all kindergartners in Maryland were rated on their readiness for school. The Work Sampling System (WSS) was used to assess kindergarteners' skills in seven curricular domains: social and personal development, language and literacy, mathematical thinking, scientific thinking, social studies, the arts, and physical development and health. The report notes that 49 percent of entering kindergarten students were rated by their teachers as fully ready for kindergarten work. Forty-four percent were at the "approaching readiness" level and seven percent of students were in the "developing readiness" category. School readiness was related to race/ethnicity, gender, prior early care, special education status, limited English proficiency status, and family economic status. The report includes recommendations for using the baseline information, answers to frequently asked questions, and examples of skills, behaviors, and knowledge indicating full school readiness in each domain. The bulk of the report is presented in three appendices providing descriptions of the 30 WSS indicators, county-level data on selected WSS performance indicators, and county- and state-level information on differences by gender, race/ethnicity, experience in prior care, special education status, English proficiency, and family economic status. (KB)