As part of efforts to improve services for children from 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 would provide baseline information on children entering kindergarten. This report provides state- and county-level school baseline information for 2002-03, the second year that all kindergartners in Maryland were rated on school readiness. The Work Sampling System (WSS) was used to assess kindergartners' 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 statewide data for the composite score revealed that 52 percent of entering kindergartners in Maryland were rated by their teachers as "fully ready" to perform kindergarten work. Forty-one percent of entering students were at the "approaching readiness" level and needed targeted support to meet kindergarten expectations, and 7 percent were at the "developing readiness" category and needed considerable support to perform kindergarten work successfully. Most of the support was needed in the domains of scientific thinking, social studies, mathematical thinking, and language and literacy. Compared to 2001-02 data, the composite school readiness data showed that 3 percent more kindergarten students came to school fully ready, with improvement evident in all domains. The area showing the largest improvement was language and literacy. The bulk of the report is presented in five appendices providing descriptions of the 30 WSS indicators, county-level data on selected WSS performance indicators, and trend data over time as well as information for specific groups of children. The fifth appendix contains 12 references. (KB)