STATEMENT ON NAEP 2003 MATHEMATICS AND READING RESULTS

FOR RELEASE at 10 a.m.
Thursday, November 13, 2003

Contact: Lawrence Feinberg
(202) 357-6938

STATEMENT ON NAEP 2003 MATHEMATICS
AND READING RESULTS

JOHN H. STEVENS

Member, National Assessment Governing Board;
Executive Director, Texas Business and Education Coalition

The 2003 NAEP results are encouraging news. Particularly in math, something positive is happening in our schools.

The first page of the NAEP highlights reports has a big chart with average scores, and these scores are very important, but they don't represent all that's going on. To gain a more complete understanding it is necessary also to look at the achievement levels, at different groups of students, and at how students are doing across the full range of achievement.

Since the year 2000, the last time the NAEP mathematics assessment was given, the students at the bottom have made the greatest improvement. The largest gains have been achieved by fourth grade students in the lowest 10 percent or the lowest quarter of the test score distribution. The lower-scoring students in the 8^th grade also have made substantial improvements.

In just three years, the proportion of black fourth graders reaching the Basic achievement level in mathematics rose from 36 to 54 percent nationwide. Among Hispanic students, whose number has increased enormously, the proportion reaching Basic in fourth grade math rose from 42 percent in 2000 to 62 percent in 2003.

The overall picture is encouraging because not only did the lower-scoring groups improve, but higher-scoring students made gains too, although at a somewhat slower rate. This means that the gaps in math have diminished in the past three years—between the highest tenth and lowest tenth and between different racial groups. Nobody has been "held back" so somebody else can improve.

In reading, unfortunately, the situation is less clear. This year, 2003, is the first time that a subject has been tested by NAEP two years in a row. It is unrealistic to expect dramatic changes in one year—particularly for the large groups of students in a state or in the nation on which NAEP reports. And the 2003 reading assessment shows very little change from 2002.

It is important that the gains made in fourth grade reading from 1998 and 2000 to 2002 have been sustained. And here again the greatest improvements were made at the lower end of the test score distribution and among black and Hispanic students, whose performance historically has lagged.

The situation recently in 8^th grade reading is less positive. Even though there was some gain in 8^th grade reading achievement from 1992 to 1998, the overall performance has been essentially flat over the past five years. It's been flat all up and down the test score distribution, and between the 2002 and 2003 assessments there was even a slight downturn at the 10^th and 25^th percentiles. And even where there have been gains in reading, they have been much less substantial and much less pervasive than the gains in math.

I think one point that can explain the difference is that development in math depends mostly on what happens in the schools and in the math classes and math lessons that students get in school. But reading development depends on many interactions and experiences—on what happens in school and what happens at home, on what students do with their friends when they aren't in school or at home. It is influenced, powerfully, by the culture and values, the interests and knowledge that students get from their families, peers, communities, and the wider society.

In school, after students learn to decode, which they must do well, developing good readers does not depend only on specific reading lessons but on the reading, writing, and thinking students do throughout the curriculum. Where students' experience and knowledge is limited, where they don't grow up in a language-rich environment, schools have to compensate.

One other factor that clearly affects reading performance more than math is English-language ability since NAEP is a test of reading in English. From 1998 to 2003, the proportion of 8^th graders tested by NAEP who are classified by their schools as limited-English proficient (or LEP) rose from 2 percent to 5 percent of the national sample, and this tends, of course, to hold down the overall average scores.

However, non-LEP students have shown no significant change in 8^th grade reading achievement since 1998. The average scores of whites and blacks, as well as those of Hispanics, have shown no change. The racial gaps in 8^th grade reading are just about as wide as they were five years ago, and, in fact, they haven't budged since the current version of the NAEP reading assessment was first given in 1992.

So where have gains been made and where do weaknesses persist?

As you may know, NAEP samples a very wide range of content, but it is not a detailed diagnostic exam, which can pinpoint particular problems. Through the NAEP achievement levels, however, we can get some sense of the skills and abilities students have mastered and where they still fall short. This should point to improvements in our schools that will help all our students achieve at higher levels.

In math, at the Basic achievement level, where there have been major gains, students understand math concepts and are able to perform math operations. In fourth grade they can do simple whole-number computations and solve some simple real-world problems. In 8^th grade at the Basic level, arithmetic has improved so students can solve problems accurately with whole numbers, decimals, fractions, and percents.

The proportion of students reaching the Basic level has increased dramatically. In fourth grade it has gone up from just half of all students in 1990 to about two-thirds in 2000 to more than three-quarters this year. In 8^th grade the proportion reaching Basic has climbed from about half in 1990 to more than two-thirds now.

This is real progress. The fact that so many students now reach the Basic level is very important, encouraging news. But that raises the question of where do they go next. The answer, of course, is the NAEP Proficient level, which requires something more.

To reach Proficient on NAEP, students must be able to apply the math they've learned to different, often unfamiliar situations, to set up problems as well as to solve what they are given. At fourth grade this includes being able to make sure that any answers they get are reasonable. At eighth grade, students at the Proficient level are able to reason clearly, to make inferences, and to apply the math they've learned to solve complex problems.

This next step—applying and reasoning—is where many students fall short, and where our schools have to focus their next efforts.

Over the 1990s and in the past three years there has been a substantial increase in the proportion of students reaching the Proficient level. Overall, in fourth grade, it has risen from just 13 percent in 1990 to 24 percent in 2000, and up to 32 percent this year. In eighth grade nationwide, the proportion of students reaching the Proficient level has climbed from 15 percent in 1990 to 29 percent this year. But it is here that the racial gaps are much greater and it is here that much more work must be done.

For example, the proportion of black fourth graders reaching Proficient has climbed from just 1 percent in 1990 to 5 percent in 2000 to 10 percent in 2003. In the last three years the proportion of Hispanics reaching this level rose from 7 to 16 percent. But among white fourth graders 43 percent now reach the Proficient level; among Asians it's 48 percent. The progress is encouraging, but the gaps are still very wide, and we as a nation will have to deal with them if we want all children to have a chance for a successful future.

In reading there is similar situation. Essentially, the NAEP reading assessment is a test of reading comprehension. At the Basic achievement level in fourth grade, students can understand the overall meaning of what they have read and pick out some details to support their understanding. At the Basic level in eighth grade, where the text is more complicated, they can identify main ideas and recap the relationships in a story.

But the Proficient achievement level requires something more. Again, as in math, it is the ability to analyze and reason and extend, to draw inferences and make trenchant summaries, not just to provide details. At the Proficient level in 8^th grade reading, students should be able to discern themes and analyze motives, and to draw connections between what they read on the test and other things they have read and learned. In other words, Proficient reading requires the ability to analyze and interpret, to apply what is read not just retell it.

And it is at this level that many students fall short, that progress has been slow, and where the racial/ethnic gaps are most disturbing. Among 8^th graders, about 40 percent of whites and Asians read at or above the Proficient level, compared to 13 percent of black students and 15 percent of Hispanics. Ability to comprehend and use what is read is vital to success in high school and college. When students lack this ability at the end of middle school or junior high, there are bound to be serious problems for them later on and for our efforts to achieve a more equitable society.

There are many other points of interest in these results but I want to mention just a few more. For the first time we now have NAEP reading and math achievement data for the same year and we have a time series of state-by-state results that goes back more than a decade. This gives us a chance to see where the greatest gains have been made and to try to understand and explain any patterns.

First, the most obvious. The gains have been much greater in mathematics than in reading, and these math gains have been really quite tremendous in the early elementary grades up to grade four, somewhat less in the middle school grades up to grade 8.

In math, the largest gains since 1990 and 1992 have been in some of the Southern states—North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi. At eighth grade, Texas and New York are in this group too. In reading at fourth grade, where NAEP data goes back to 1992, the gains have been largest in Delaware, Florida, North Carolina, and Maryland. In eighth grade reading, where state NAEP goes back only to 1998, there are gains in only eight states. Most of these gains are pretty small, but half of the states that achieved them are in the South.

Obviously, there are still serious challenges in Southern schools. As you can see on the maps in our reports today, most of the Southern states are still below the national averages. But most of them have large numbers of disadvantaged students—and many are getting more immigrants whose English is limited. For the most part, gains have been realized in the Southern states that have established school accountability programs. They've been willing to face their problems squarely. They are making progress, and that's encouraging.

For the first time this year, students in all 50 states participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress as part of the requirements under No Child Left Behind. There are no penalties or rewards attached to the NAEP results. But they are an important part of the system for keeping track of the patterns and trends in student achievement in our nation, in the states, and among the various groups that are served by our schools.

The tests themselves don't change the schools. Their teachers and students and parents do that. But the tests are crucial in providing the information they all need to make good decisions and help our students learn more. Today NAEP has given us an enormous amount of information. I'm pretty sure it's going to be used. I hope it's going to be used well to the benefit of all our nation's young people. Thank you very much.