Reading Scores a Mixed Bag for Students - National Test Shows Lower Grades Improving, High School Seniors in Slump
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 20, 2003; Page A12
This is Washington, DCs premier paper. Would you guess from reading this that the test shows:
1) The DC District's schoolchildren rank as the worst readers in the country and only slightly better in some grades than non-English-speaking children in the territories of Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa.
2) The DC District's schoolchildren in all grades are slipping backward as other jurisdictions improve, despite per-pupil spending and teacher salaries that are among the highest in the country.
3) More than two-thirds of the city's fourth-graders and more than half of its eighth-graders had "below basic" reading ability last year, according to NAEP tests. "Below basic" means the children could not demonstrate an understanding of what they read.
4) The District's percentage of "below basic" readers also was 20 percentage points higher than the national average for city students, even though the District's $9,650 per-pupil cost and average teacher salary of $48,651 topped all but a few states, according to the report.
I had to get this information from that "Lousy" Washington Times, which ran their version of this on the front page. Shows you what a "Liberal" slant of the news can do.http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20030620-120913-1954r.htm
Reading scores for the nation's fourth-graders rose between 1998 and 2002, an improvement that was tempered by a flat performance by eighth-graders and a decline among high school seniors, according to the results of a widely respected national test released yesterday.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test given to representative samples of students in 43 states, found that 31 percent of fourth-graders, 33 percent of eighth-graders and 36 percent of 12th-graders could read at least at the proficient level -- meaning they could handle challenging subject matter.
The results showed that 36 percent of fourth-graders and 25 percent of eighth-graders performed below the basic level, failing to demonstrate even partial mastery of reading. That was an improvement over 1998, when 40 percent of fourth-graders and 27 percent of eighth-graders scored below basic on the exam.
But reading scores were uniformly disappointing among the nation's high school seniors, with 26 percent scoring below basic in 2002, a decline of 2 percentage points from 1998. Also, 36 percent of 12th-graders scored at or above the proficient level, down from 40 percent in 1998.
"There are no scientific answers to why our high school seniors have performed so poorly on this reading assessment, but we're still searching for solutions to these daunting challenges," Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige said in a statement.
Often referred to as the nation's report card, the NAEP test is viewed by many educators as a rigorous and reliable measure of educational achievement. The tests are graded on a 500-point scale, and results are reported in four categories: below basic, basic, proficient and advanced.
Locally, Virginia fourth- and eighth-graders improved on the test over the past four years, with students in both grades exceeding national test averages. Overall, 37 percent of the state's students in both grades scored at or above proficient on the exam. Scores for 12th-graders are offered only on a nationwide basis.
"I think what the Virginia experience shows is that when you have accountability for results and when you make an effort to focus particularly on reading instruction, you get higher achievement, said Mark Christie, president of the state's Board of Education. "You've got a clear correlation [with] the phasing in of the Standards of Learning program, which has brought in accountability and these scores."
Reading scores also improved in Maryland, where 30 percent of fourth-graders and 32 percent of eighth-graders scored at or above proficient. State Department of Education spokesman William Reinhard attributed the increases in fourth-grade scores to a Maryland-wide focus on strengthening early childhood curriculum.
The state has been expanding full-day kindergarten programs, which will be a requirement by the 2006-2007 school year. "We're turning kindergarten from traditionally more of a social experience into an academic one," Reinhard said. "A lot more reading goes on in kindergarten than used to."
In the District, fourth-grade and eighth-grade scores on the exam were flat. Overall, 10 percent of District students in each grade scored at or above proficient.
Nationwide, the test results continued to show significant racial achievement gaps at each grade level. Girls performed better than boys at all grade levels, a gap that widened among high school seniors. Students from lower-income homes lagged behind their more affluent peers. Most troubling, officials said, is that white and Asian American students continued to outscore blacks and Hispanics by wide margins.
Among fourth-graders in the nation's public schools, for example, 39 percent of whites and 36 percent of Asian Americans scored at or above the proficient level. Only 12 percent of blacks and 14 percent of Hispanics reached the same threshold.
Education Undersecretary Eugene W. Hickok said the achievement gaps will close only after school systems are confronted with this type of data on a continuing basis.
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