NAEP finds mixed results on student achievement

Average reading skills, however, are not keeping pace, with eighth-grade students even losing ground on this year’s NAEP assessment. And overall reading scores have hardly changed since 1992.

Known as the Nation’s Report Card, the NAEP findings, released Oct. 19, also show the nation making only modest progress in closing the achievement gap between white and minority students.

Despite the disappointing reading results, federal officials emphasized the positive findings.

“These results indicate progress,” says Darvin M. Winick, chair of the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which sets policy for the national assessment. “Parents and educators should be pleased with recent successes, especially at the elementary level.”

About 660,000 students nationwide -- in grades 4, 8, and 12 -- took the 2005 NAEP assessments in reading and math. The 12th-grade results will be released next spring.

The greatest academic improvements were seen in math scores. On this year’s NAEP assessment, the average score for fourth-grade students is 238 (on a scale of 0 to 500) -- three points higher than it was in 2003. Eighth-graders posted a score of 279, a one-point gain.

That increase is far more impressive when viewed as part of a steady, 15-year rise in math achievement. This year’s fourth-grade scores were 25 points higher than in 1990, while eighth-grade scores were up 16 points.

“It seems that increasing percentages of students are developing the math foundation they need in elementary and middle school to participate in high school math and science courses,” says John H. Stevens, chair of NAGB’s reporting and dissemination committee. “That’s a good thing.”

The good news was offset by mixed results in reading. In 2005, the average score for fourth-grade students was 219 -- one point higher than in 2003 but the same as 2002 scores. Eighth-grade achievement dropped one point to 262, the second time scores declined since 2002.

The long-term trends in reading achievement also are mixed. Although fourth-grade scores rose 6 points since 2000, both fourth and eighth-grade scores are only two points higher than in 1992.

The results also showed that a sizable number of students still read poorly. Nationwide, 36 percent of fourth graders and 27 percent of eighth graders scored below the basic levels of achievement.

Also, by some measures, students made greater gains before the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) went into effect -- a fact noted repeatedly by critics of the Bush Administration’s high-stakes accountability plan.

“The [NAEP scores] show that high-stakes, punitive testing does not produce meaningful improvements in student achievement,” says Monty Neill, co-director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). “The nation cannot test its way to educational quality.”

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings suggested that the disappointing reading results can be explained, in part, by the huge influx of non-English-speaking immigrants enrolling in schools.

Stevens echoed that point, saying, “As our nation and states become more and more diverse, and the differences between states’ demographics vary dramatically, we as a country have to figure out how to educate children from all kinds of backgrounds and circumstances.”

Among other findings in the NAEP report:

• Nationwide, 20 percent of fourth graders and 31 percent of eighth graders perform below basic achievement levels in math.

• Although all races showed gains in mastering math and reading, a majority of black and Hispanic fourth graders still do not score at basic achievement levels in reading. More than half of black eighth graders are below basic levels in math.

• Although minorities made some gains in narrowing the achievement gap in recent years, many score gaps are not “statistically different” from what they were in 1992.

• Massachusetts outperformed the rest of the nation in both reading and math at both fourth and eighth grades. The District of Columbia scored lowest in all areas.