As almost everybody knows, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) last week released - faster than ever before - summaries of its 2003 assessments of reading and math, including both national and state-specific results in grades 4 and 8. This was the first time that (per NCLB requirements) every state had to take part in the NAEP reading and math assessments, like it or not. These results can be thought of as the real No Child Left Behind "baselines." As you may recall, NCLB both requires states to set their own standards and test their own pupils in reading and math AND creates a role for NAEP as a sort of independent audit of state standards and achievement in these key subjects. When one observes, for example, that NAEP shows 4th grade reading prowess declining from 2002 to 2003, as happened in Massachusetts, or rising, as in Florida, one wants to take a closer look at the trends that those states are reporting from their own tests calibrated to their own standards. Putting it differently, when one sees that Ohio, for example, has 30 percent of its 8th graders scoring at or above the "proficient" level in math as gauged by NAEP, that other states are as high as 38 percent (Massachusetts again) and as low as 12 percent (Mississippi), one wants to know how the state itself is reporting its students' levels of attainment according to its own definition of proficiency and its own assessment system.
Besides the NCLB "audit" function, NAEP results also tell us, as has long been the case with this invaluable federal program, about national trends (up in math, flat in reading), achievement gaps, and absolute levels of performance vis-??-vis standards set by NAEP's independent governing board. What do we conclude? Judged by NAEP standards, the country has a vast distance to cover before all youngsters are "proficient" in core subjects. Today's public school students attain that level in math at rates of 31 percent (4th grade) and 27 percent (8th grade). The corresponding performance in reading is 31 percent proficient in grade 4 and 32 percent in grade 8. In other words, more than two-thirds of U.S. pupils are not yet where they ought to be-and in reading they're not getting closer. Moreover, while certain achievement gaps have narrowed a bit, the most troubling of them remain dismayingly wide. In 8th grade reading, for example, just 12 percent of black students and 14 percent of Hispanics are proficient or better (and an alarming 46-47 percent are "below basic.") In math, the picture is still worse: 7 percent of black 8th graders, and 11 percent of Hispanics, are at/above proficient while 61 percent and 53 percent are "below basic."
Secretary Paige strove to squeeze rhetorical lemonade from these lemons: "slowly picking up steam," "reforms are starting to work," "a turning of the corner." That's his job, I suppose: to be encouraging, positive and avuncular. To my eye, however, "sour" remains the apt adjective. Whatever you conclude, you will want these data at hand, both for the nation and for your state. They're the most accurate profile of student achievement that you'll find anywhere and by far the best source of comparative data. You can find Rod Paige's comments at http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2003/11/11132003.html and the reports themselves at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/.
