CT Students Do Well on National Reading Test But Don't Excel

Results from the The National Assessment of Educational Progress, dubbed the "Nation's Report Card", show that Connecticut students are doing better in Reading and Math than most other students in the country.

However the results also show that more than half of Connecticut's children have only a basic or below basic understanding of the subject matter in Reading. In addition while gains have been made in the past 20 years at closing the achievement gap between white and minority students, in recent years there has been no change. (You can get see the break down of state comparisons here.)

“All the progress in reading is being made at the bottom,” said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution told the New York Times in an article. “Our worst readers are getting better, but our best readers are staying about the same.”

The tests are given every two years to 338,000 randomly chosen fourth and eighth grade students around the country. The Reading scores were released last week while the Math scores were released earlier in the year.

In the 2009 Reading test CT fourth graders scored 229 on a 500 point scale. Only one state, Massachusetts scored statistically higher. When the testing began in 1990 Connecticut students scored 222 so students have improved, but in the past decade CT fourth graders scored 230 and they have remained unchanged since then. So essentially the early gains have been unsustainable.

At the eight grade level CT students scored 272. Only students in Massachusetts and New Jersey scored higher. However once again the long term results show that the improvements were made in the early years. When testing began in 1990 CT eighth grade students scored 222. This years score is up since the score in 2007 when students scored 267, but earlier in the decade students had scored 272.

A closer look at the Reading scores among CT students shows that while they did very well in comparison to their peers around the country, their actual performance leaves much to be desired.

At the fourth grade level in CT 24% of test takers were below basic level, 33% were a at basic level, 31% were proficient, and 11% were advanced. At the eighth grade level in CT 19% were below basic, 39% were at a basic, 38% were profficient, and 4% were at an advanced level.

When the scores are analyzed with regards to race and poverty the good news is that the gap between Whites and others in CT is narrower than it was 20 years ago, but it's still striking. The average White fourth grader in Connecticut scored 238, while the average Black fourth grader scored 209 -- a difference of 29 points. Two decades ago the gap was 34 points. Similarly the gap between Whites and Hispanics this year was 33 points. It was 43 points 21 years ago.

The statistics released show that the gap between students eligible for free or reduced lunch was 30 points this year compared to 35 points when testing began.

Tom Murphy spokesperson for the State Department of Education had this to say to the Harford Courrant about the gap: ""This is Connecticut's story. We can't seem to address this issue adequately," Murphy said. "We know we are dealing with students coming in from other countries and we are dealing with poverty and people who have language barriers. They come in from elsewhere, receive an education, do better and then move out to the suburbs. Then a new group of people moves in to the cities and we start over."

Personally I would have liked to see a breakdown of the scores comparing White students who were eligible for free lunch to those White students who were not eligible. A similar breakdown for Black and Hispanic students would also have been helpful. These numbers could better highlight whether the gap is caused by poverty, language barriers. That's not to say that the causes can't be mixed, but a better understanding of the driving factors within a particular group might lead to a better solution and more improvement across the board.

Also the fact that the gap has narrowed is certainly a laudable achievement.  However at the same time it does concern me that for all the effort we are putting in in lifting our struggling students, we are leaving our best students unchallenged.