Achievement gaps are narrowing, report finds

10/26/04 — Student achievement in reading and math is rising in the elementary grades in most states, and achievement gaps are narrowing, according to a report released Oct. 14 by the Education Trust. But in many places, the study finds, “the pace of these gains must accelerate dramatically if all students are to meet state standards by 2014.”

“While our analysis offers some positive news about the power of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to get educators focused on closing achievement gaps, it demonstrates that this law itself is not the substantive reform we need,” says Ross Wiener, policy director of the Education Trust. According to the report, “the pace remains too slow to meet our important national goal of having all students meet state reading and math standards in a decade.”

Among the report’s key findings:

• Of the 24 states with at least three years’ worth of comparable state assessment data, math achievement has improved in 23 states since 2002. Math performance declined in one state — Connecticut.

• Of the 23 states that had at least three years of reading data, achievement increased in 15. Reading performance declined in five states and remained the same in three.

• Although statewide achievement results broken down by race and ethnicity are available in fewer states for all three years, the gaps are narrowing in most of these states.

• The gap between African American and white students, for instance, shrank in 16 states in reading and 17 states in math. The gap between Latinos and whites narrowed in 14 states in reading and 16 in math.