While some education experts are concerned that the scores demonstrate the failure of education policies, others are more alarmed by the persistent gap between white and minority students.
For the first time in more than 25 years, U.S. student test scores dropped last year in reading and math in a nationwide assessment — the 2015 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).
Every two years, 600,000 fourth- and eighth-grade students are tested in reading and mathematics as part of the NAEP, also known as the Nation's Report Card. The results show that eighth-graders dropped two points in math and reading (on a 500-point test scale) from 2013's results, while fourth-graders dropped one point in math and stayed the same in reading.
Student proficiency — or mastery of subject matter — also fell. Only 36 percent of fourth-graders and 34 percent of eighth-graders were rated as at or above proficiency in reading, while in math 40 percent of fourth-graders and 33 percent of eighth-graders met this mark.
Some say the results support arguments against such education policies as high-stakes testing. Diane Ravitch, PhD, education professor at New York University, called the scores "an embarrassment" that showed the "fiasco" of the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top policies of the Bush and Obama administrations. But others say the drop in test scores is too small and singular to inspire any large-scale conclusions. Instead, they say, the NAEP reveals other trends that are more worrisome, such as the continuing gap between white and minority student achievement.
"It's not exceptionally unusual or necessarily a large concern when you get fluctuations of this size," says Karen Harris, PhD, education professor at Arizona State University.
Jonathan Plucker, PhD, education professor at Johns Hopkins University, agrees but points out that the broader trend is that scores haven't significantly increased for several years — indicating that reforms have accomplished about as much as they can and have now leveled off.
"Many psychologists predicted if we really focused on getting these test scores up, we'd see them jump — which we did," Plucker says. "And then we'd see them start to top out, and that's what we're probably experiencing now."
More alarming is that the NAEP tests show a continuing divide between achievement by white and black and Hispanic students — generally in the 25-point range. "The achievement gaps are absolutely massive," says Plucker.
In eighth-grade mathematics, for example, the achievement gap between whites and blacks was 32 points (in 1990, the gap was 33 points). For whites and Hispanics in eighth-grade mathematics, the gap was 22 points. In 1990, it was 24.
In eighth-grade reading, the gap between whites and blacks stood at 26 points in 2015, compared with a 30-point gap in 1992. The gap between whites and Hispanics stood at 21 points in 2015, compared with 26 points in 1992.
Among fourth-graders, reading results had a 26-point differential between whites and blacks and 24 points between whites and Hispanics, compared with 32- and 27-point gaps in 1992. Math testing for fourth-graders revealed a 24-point gap between whites and blacks and an 18-point gap between whites and Hispanics, improved from 32- and 20-point gaps in 1990.
In general, scores are better today than when testing began. But psychologists and educators are frustrated that any gap remains despite decades of government attention, programs and dollars aimed at closing it.
"Achievement gaps are largely driven by socioeconomic status," Plucker says, adding that any fix must look at addressing these factors. "It has to be about living standards and quality of life. You start changing those and then it's fair to expect the scores to keep slowly increasing."
Harris says in recent years, she has seen more young children in the schools in which she works who are living in homeless shelters. Poverty, family stress and instability are "going to have an impact on national test scores too," she says. "We have more families living in poverty than at any time in our recent history and that's going to impact the data."
— Lorna Collier
