Student Achievement Rising at a "Snail’s Pace," Says New Report from The Brookings Institution’s Brown Center

The math and reading achievement of American students has risen since 1971, but only at a snail’s pace, according to a new report issued this week by the Brown Center on Education Policy at The Brookings Institution.

The report, The Brown Center Report on American Education, also found that, while gains in math since 1973 have been significant, gains in reading have been exceedingly small. And the report finds that older children continue to lag behind younger children in both math and reading achievement.

"Our report shows that gains in academic achievement over the last decade have proceeded at a snail’s pace, " said Tom Loveless, Director of the Brown Center. "We know that test results on the ‘main’ NAEP have risen during the 1990s, but the lack of a corresponding gain on the ‘trend’ data raises questions as to whether the math achievement gains recorded on the ‘main’ NAEP represent real gains in achievement. I fear that those gains may represent changes in the way we test kids, as well as a lessening emphasis on core math skills, especially."

The Brown Center report suggests that most of the recent improvement has been in areas that have received a lot of attention during the 1990s, such as problem-solving and geometry, rather than basic arithmetic skills.

Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) analyzed in the report shows nine, thirteen, and seventeen-year-olds made very small gains in reading from 1971 to 1999, with nine-year-olds showing the greatest gains. The achievement gains in math since 1973 have been greater, reaching their highest level ever in 1999.

The "middle grade slump" – the significant slowing of achievement gains from the middle school years through high school – continues to afflict American students. Math score gains for seventeen-year-olds, for example, have barely budged from 1973 while scores for younger children have risen, albeit slowly, the report states.

The report also shows that efforts to analyze gains in achievement in math are complicated by the fact that the federal government conducts two different NAEP math assessments. The U.S. Department of Education began administering the NAEP "trend" test in math in 1973, and added the "main" NAEP math test in 1990. The "trend" test has remained substantially unchanged during the last 27 years and focuses more heavily on an understanding of whole number arithmetic, fractions, decimals, percents, and integers.

The newer, "main" NAEP test follows the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM ) framework developed in 1989, which focuses more heavily on geometry and problem solving, allows students to use calculators on a portion of the test, and includes items on which students may receive partial credit despite incorrect answers. In addition, the "main" NAEP test is modified periodically to reflect changes in curriculum and instructional practices; the "trend" NAEP test has retained similar questions and testing procedures since 1973.

The data from the long-term "trend" NAEP test show very little achievement gains over the 1990s when compared with the "main" NAEP test. From 1990 to 1996, fourth graders gained eleven points (on a 0-500 scale) on the main test. In the same period, the math performance of nine-year-old fourth graders declined by one point on the trend test, opening up a twelve point scale gap between the two tests. Eighth graders gained nine points on the main, but the trend scores for thirteen-year-old eighth graders were unchanged, opening up a nine point gap. Twelfth graders improved by ten points on the main, whereas seventeen year olds in twelfth grade gained only two points on the trend, creating an eight point difference.

Gary W. Phillips, the acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees NAEP, cautioned that there are too many differences between the two NAEP assessments to compare one very well with the other. "We find the comparison confusing, which is why we don't do it," he said. "They're both valid measures."

See the full report at www.brook.edu/browncenter for a table summarizing these comparisons, as well as other tables and figures in the report.

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