Nation’s 2011 education report disappoints
What’s known as the nation’s annual report card showed disappointing trends when it comes to the nation’s educational progress. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (PDF) evaluates the reading and mathematical skills of fourth- and eighth-grade students across the nation. This year’s lackluster results, which found reading progress to be stalled and math skills making only minuscule improvements, left education officials displeased with the way U.S. students are performing in those areas.
“The modest increases in NAEP scores are reason for concern as much as optimism,” said the nation’s schools chief, Arne Duncan. “While student achievement is up since 2009 in both grades in mathematics and in eighth-grade reading, it’s clear that achievement is not accelerating fast enough for our nation’s children to compete in the knowledge economy of the 21st century. After significant NAEP gains in the 1990s, particularly in mathematics, the 2011 results continue a pattern of modest progress.”
The 2011 NAEP scores showed changes in half of the states in the nation, with Hawaii being the only state to show improvements in math and reading at both grade levels. Overall, math performance ticked up by only one point since 2009, the last time the test was given, reaching an average of 241 on a scale of 500.
When it came to reading, fourth-graders did not improve at all, with their score only being four points higher than it was back in 1992. For eighth-graders, the news was just as dismal, with their average reading score going up only one point since 2009 and just five points since 1992.
“Over the past two decades major gains have occurred in mathematics achievement, but only modest improvements in reading,” said David Driscoll, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, in a statement. “We must now find a way to regain the momentum in math and accelerate student progress in both subjects.”
One of the best ways to improve reading scores, experts say, is by encouraging students to read for fun. According to this year’s NAEP results, fourth-graders who reported reading for fun regularly scored higher on the test. Promisingly, the NAEP findings also show that a higher percentage of fourth-graders are now reading for fun when compared to previous years.
Duncan says the Obama administration will be doing its part to help improve student test scores and classroom performance by making sure that schools are equipped with both good educators and the proper technology and tools needed for success.
“President Obama and I are committed to investing in education to protect teachers’ jobs and help communities modernize their schools for the 21st century,” he said. “Through the American Jobs Act, the president has proposed $30 billion to keep teachers in the classroom and off the unemployment line, and another $30 billion to repair and modernize schools that will upgrade science labs and create 21st-century learning environments in America’s antiquated school buildings.”
