Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Newly-released math scores have revealed that U.S. fourth and eighth grade children are doing better than ever in the subject - but are still behind national targets

Despite better math scores, progress has slowed and achievement gaps between the races remain wide. There were few noticeable changes in the achievement gap between white and black students from 2009. The new test results reflect a 25-point difference between white and black fourth- and eighth-graders in reading and fourth-graders in math. However, Hispanic students in eighth grade made some small strides to narrow the gap with white students in both math and reading. The results also revealed that Asian students had the highest scores of any single group. While black and Hispanic students in New York did better on eighth-grade reading tests over the last two years, the disparity with their white counterparts is still great -- a score of 251 for both minority groups, compared with 276 for white students. Tests scores for black and Hispanic students remained relatively stagnant in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math, with the gap between minorities and white students in New York still sizable. Black and Hispanic children scored an average of 263 to 264 on their eighth-grade math tests, while white students scored 28 points higher in 2011. Since 2003, math proficiency in New York among the state’s Latino eighth-graders has decreased. In Texas, the math achievement gaps have narrowed between minority and white students. In 1990, Hispanic eighth-graders scored 28 points lower than white eighth-graders; in 2011, the gap was 20 points. In 1990, black eighth-graders scored 38 points lower than white eighth-graders; in 2011, the gap was 27 points. In 1992, black fourth-graders scored 31 points lower than white fourth-graders; in 2011, the gap was 22 points. In reading, however, none of the gaps showed a significant change in Texas. National scores in fourth-grade reading did not budge significantly overall or for racial/ethnic subgroups since 2009, the last time the assessment was administered. Indeed, among low-income students and students of color, fewer than one in four fourth-graders and one in five eighth-graders scored Proficient or above in either subject. In fourth-grade reading, five states — Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and Minnesota — have gaps between black and white, Latino and white and low-income and more affluent students that all are as great as or greater than the national averages. In fourth-grade math, scale scores for African-American students in Oregon and South Carolina, Latino students in Connecticut and American Indian/Alaska Native students in Alaska and Washington have all dropped since 2003. Despite a one-point increase since 2009, Latino scores in Ohio are still 16 points lower in eighth-grade reading than they were in 2003.

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