Report finds reading levels in state flat

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas elementary students’ reading proficiency remained flat between 2007 and 2009, according to new data released Wednesday.

Reading scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress - also known as the Nation’s Report Card - remained virtually unchanged for both Arkansas fourth- and eighth-graders over the last three years.

The average Arkansas fourth-grade score on the 500-point exam dropped from 217 in 2007 to 216 in 2009, though the change was not considered statistically significant.

The score means that only 29 percent of Arkansas fourth-graders scored high enough to be considered proficient or advanced in reading.

The average Arkansas eighth-grade score was 258 in both 2007 and 2009.

That means only 27 percent of the test takers were proficient or advanced in reading.

In both grade levels, Arkansas’ 2009 average scores in reading fell below national averages.

Arkansas Commissioner of Education Tom Kimbrell said in a news release Wednesday that it’s a positive sign the state didn’t go backward in reading performance.

He said the state would continue to look for ways to improve performance on the exams.

“We always would like to see the scores go up, but we know that’s not going to happen each testing time,” spokesman Julie Johnson Thompson said Wednesday. “We were pleased the scores did not go down.”

Nationwide scores between 2007 and 2009 largely mirrored the stagnant results in Arkansas. The majority of states’ scores stayed flat in both grades during the two years.

Fourth-graders across the country had an average score of 220 in 2009 and 2007.

Eighth-graders across the country had an average score of 262 in 2009, up from 261 in 2007.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the results were not good.

“Today’s results once again show that the achievement of American students isn’t growing fast enough,” he said in a news release. “We shouldn’t be satisfied with these results. By this and many other measures, our students aren’t on a path to graduate high school ready to succeed in college and the workplace.”

The test is the country’s only nationally representative and continuing measure of student achievement.

It includes 178,800 fourth graders and 160,900 eighth graders nationally. About 3,000 Arkansas fourth-graders and 3,000 Arkansas eighth graders participated from about 300 schools.

The test is administered by the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics.

Arkansas’ flat numbers contrast sharply with steady gains the same group of students posted during the same time period on the Arkansas Benchmark Examinations.

Statewide, 71 percent of fourth-graders scored proficient or advanced in literacy on the 2009 Benchmarks, up from 60 percent in 2007.

About 72 percent of eighth graders statewide scored proficient or advanced in literacy on the 2009 Benchmarks, up from 65 percent in 2007.

Gary Ritter, associate professor of Education and Public Policy at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville Department of Education Reform, said Wednesday that students in many states perform much more strongly on state exams than on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Even though the gap is significant in Arkansas, it’s much wider in many other states, Ritter said.

He cited a recent Education Next article that compared every state’s performance on the national exam to their own standardized test scores. The article gave Arkansas high marks compared with most neighboring states.

“Our state standards are not as rigorous as NAEP’s. Are NAEP’s the right standards or are Arkansas’ the right standards? I don’t know,” he said. “It’s always worth keeping an eye on.”

Steven Paine - a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, the entity that oversees the administration of the exam - said during a Wednesday teleconference that the stagnant scores nationwide show that schools need to abandon strategies that haven’t been working in reading instruction.

Instead, he encouraged the development of a nationwide curriculum for reading, increasing funding for teacher and principal development, and greater emphasis on testing and accountability in schools.

“I really think there are tremendous implications for the quality of teaching and the development of school leadership to make sure we have high-performing schools across the country,” Paine said. “The discussion starts with the way we prepare teachers and the way we assist them as we increase the level of expectations across the system.”

Stuart Kerachsky, acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said during a Wednesday teleconference that while there was little progress among subgroups of students from 2007 to 2009, there has been improvement over time.

For example, between 1992 and 2009, there was a 6-point increase for white fourth grade students, an 8-point increase for Hispanic fourthgrade students, a 13-point increase for black fourth-grade students, and a 19-point increase for Asian fourth-grade students.

“So there is some progress if you disaggregate the numbers and look at race and ethnicity,” he said.