National Assessment Shows 'Encouraging Trends' in Mathematics Performance,

The latest nationwide assessment of how well schools are teaching shows a steady improvement in math scores since the early 1980s and a slight slip in students' knowledge of science in the late 1990s.

But an achievement gap persists between African-American 17-year-olds, who on average are still two years behind their white counterparts in their reading skills, according to a new trend report released as part of the government's 1999 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).

"Encouraging trends in student achievement" were the words used this week by Gary W. Phillips, acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), to describe the NAEP findings which examined the academic performance of 9-, 13-, and 17-year olds throughout three decades. Data show that for mathematics, since 1973, students in all age groups assessed achieved consistent gains. These increases began in the 1980s and continued into the 1990s.

"The most consistent and steady gains were in mathematics and advanced course taking in mathematics and science," Phillips said. NAEP is administered by NCES, an agency within the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement. NAEP has administered 10 long-term trend assessments for reading, 10 for science, and 9 for mathematics during the past 30 years. In 1999, approximately 16,000 students took each of the three assessments.

NAEP 1999 Trends in Academic Progress also describes student performance since the early 1970s in reading and science. Reading scores have also improved, but showed less improvement than mathematics scores. Nine and 13-year-olds are reading better than they did nearly 30 years ago. However, scores for 17-year-olds remained unchanged.

Student performance in science has varied by age group. Scores for 9-year-olds were higher in 1999 than in 1970, while scores for 13-year-olds remained unchanged. For 17-year-olds, scores were lower in 1999 than in the first assessment, administered in 1969. Actually, the science scores for this group decreased between 1969 and 1982, before they started increasing. While this age group's science scores have not returned to their initial level, there is an emerging trend of 17-year-olds taking more advanced science courses.

The report also provides data related to the nation's ongoing concerns about the educational gap between minorities and whites. While scores for whites have consistently been higher than for African-Americans and Latinos for all three ages in all three subjects, some gaps have narrowed for some age groups in all three subjects since the early 1970s.

For example, in mathematics, the score gap between African-American and white students narrowed for all three age groups. For Latinos, the gap narrowed for 13- and 17-year-olds, but not for 9-year-olds. In reading, score gaps for African-Americans and whites also narrowed for all three age groups. For Latinos, the gap narrowed for 17-year-olds only. In science, the score gaps for African-Americans and whites narrowed for 9- and 13-year-olds only. The gaps for whites and Latinos remained unchanged. Despite these improvements in the 1970s and 1980s, there have not been consistent decreases in the size of the gaps since 1990.

The report also describes performance by gender. In reading, females continued to outperform males in all three age groups. In mathematics, males had outperformed females at age 17 in previous long-term trend assessments, but in 1999 this gap disappeared, resulting in similar performance for males and females for all three age groups. In science, males outperformed females at ages 13 and 17, but not at age 9. The science gap favoring 17-year-old males has declined since the first assessment in 1969.

Reading tests measure everything from identifying words to interpreting complicated texts. The math tests range from simple arithmetic to problem solving and reasoning. Science assessments ask students, depending on their ages, whether they know simple facts and principles or can analyze scientific data.

	Related Links Results from the 1999 Long-Term Trend Assessment in Reading, Mathematics and Science LAEP to Provide Tech Training to LAUSD Teaching Credential Candidates

	Search LAEP advanced search