Jersey students improve scores on national test

New Jersey's public school fourth-graders last year showed some of the strongest gains in the country in both reading and math scores, according to the latest release of national achievement test results.

The state's improvement was one of the few bright spots in a lackluster report from the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which found steady gains in math nationwide but little progress in reading.

The results from the test known as the "Nation's Report Card" were seized upon from all sides in debates raging both in Trenton and in Washington, where President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind act is up for reauthorization.

For New Jersey, the news was mostly good. New Jersey's fourth-graders put the state among the top four in the nation in both reading and math, and eighth-grade math also showed strong gains.

While reading scores were largely flat nationwide, the percent of New Jersey's fourth-graders found to have at least basic skills jumped almost 10 percentage points, from 68 percent to 77 percent. Overall, 34 percent were at the "basic" level in reading, 31 percent were deemed proficient and 12 percent advanced. Twenty-three percent were still below basic.

"Obviously, we're always happy to see progress, but in fourth-grade literacy, that is very significant," said state Education Commissioner Lucille Davy. "We're seeing the fruits in the investments we have made in high-quality early childhood education and early literacy."

In addition, New Jersey stood out for narrowing the gap in fourth-grade reading and math between white and minority students, although a wide disparity remains. Fifty-seven percent of black fourth-graders and 61 percent of Hispanic fourth-graders were found to have at least basic skills in reading, up from 42 percent and 49 percent, respectively, in 2005. That compares with 86 percent of white fourth-graders found to have at least basic skills in reading.

Statewide, eighth-grade scores also rose but not by as big a margin, renewing worries among some educators that progress was being squandered in the later grades.

More than 12,000 New Jersey students from 223 schools participated in the NAEP testing, from urban districts like East Orange and Elizabeth to suburbs like Wayne and Tenafly, according to state data.

But beyond the numbers was the symbolic impact of the report, especially in Washington.

Given to randomly selected districts in different subject areas every other year, the NAEP test is one of the few standardized measures of student achievement in the country, pulling a sampling of students from every state, race and socio-economic category. Yet over the last several years, the news has been largely mixed, with few appreciable gains and virtually all of them in the early grades.

While yesterday's results were not stellar, they were better than in previous years, and politicians and advocates moved quickly to use them toward their respective causes.

In Washington, much of rhetoric centered around the federal No Child Left Behind act, the sweeping law that brought high-stakes testing and accountability to public schools and now is up for reauthorization in Congress.

From the law's backers came little doubt as to what deserved most of the credit. "Obviously there is a combination of factors, but No Child Left Behind has played a huge positive role," said U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings during a news conference.

From the law's critics came the assertion that the NAEP results occurred in spite of the federal law, not because of it. The National Education Association cited the achievement gaps that still remain. The American Federation of Teachers said scores were rising faster before the law's enactment in 2002.

"The slowing of the increases is troubling, and the essentially flat eighth-grade reading scores suggest there is a cloud on the horizon," said AFT vice president Antonia Cortese.

To a lesser extent, the NAEP scores drew competing political spins in New Jersey as well. The topic of discussion wasn't so much the NCLB but the state's current debate over how to pay for its schools, with the jostling over which districts would gain and which would lose under a new school finance formula.

Advocates for districts falling under the Abbott vs. Burke school equity mandates have been especially worried a new funding formula would roll back their funding and programs.

"This is more evidence that Abbott initiatives and reforms are beginning to have an effect," said David Sciarra, director of the Education Law Center. "This should be a real caution that we need to strengthen the Abbott initiatives and expand them to other districts that need them."