Despite all the hand-wringing about the state of our schools, America’s youngsters have made noticeable gains in reading and math over the past five years, and the achievement gap between white and minority elementary-school students is tightening, according to a well-respected national study.
That’s great news and something to celebrate.
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, holding up a copy of the report at a Thursday education conference in Denver, credited the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind for many of the gains.
“Our commitment is paying off,” she said.
But it’s important to note that the improvements date back to 1999, before the president took office and before NCLB was passed, and that high schools are still in need of major reform, based on the findings in the new study.
Still, it’s clear that reforms instituted over the past decade are starting to pay off. (Many states, including Colorado, started school reforms before Washington got involved.)
The progress made by all student groups over the past six years is unprecedented in the more than 30-year history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress report, known as The Nation’s Report Card.
The study showed significant improvement among white, black and Hispanic 9- year-olds in reading and math, and blacks and Hispanics made greater gains than whites in both subject areas.
Since the assessment started measuring student progress in 1971, the achievement gap among 9-year-olds has shrunk 44 points, on a 500-point scale, to 26 points. Half of that was done in the past five years – a remarkable feat.
Spellings did note that high schools still need a lot of work, and President Bush in his State of the Union address in January also pushed for high school reform. Much of the nation’s reform efforts so far have focused on elementary school students.
“High school students are getting left behind,” Spellings said. “We clearly must take high standards and accountability into our high schools.”
It’s important that today’s momentum for elementary students isn’t snuffed out in high school.
And while we’re always cautious about reading too much into one study, at least this one shows progress being made in critical areas.
