April 4, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
N.M. Students Last in Writing
By Zsombor Peter; Journal Staff WriterLast September, the U.S. Department of Education placed New Mexico's eighth grade reading and math scores near the bottom of the pack.
On Thursday, it added writing to the list.
The Department of Education places New Mexico's eighth graders in a four-way tie for last— along with Hawaii, Nevada and Mississippi— in a national report unveiled from the Library of Congress.
It also shows the state making virtually no progress over the past decade in closing the performance gap— either between Anglos and Hispanics or between poor students and others.
The dismal news comes from the otherwise upbeat 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as "the nation's report card." Unlike the No Child Left Behind tests students take each spring, which vary from state to state, the NAEP gives the federal government a consistent snapshot of student performance from coast to coast.
Nationally, the report shows the average score on the 300-point test rising six points since 1998, from 148 to 154. Students must score 114 to demonstrate basic writing skills and 173 to demonstrate proficiency.
"These overall results are encouraging, not just because writing skills are improving, but also because that improvement was most pronounced at the lower-achievement range," said Darvin Winick, chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the assessment.
Since 1998, the average score among Hispanic students nationwide rose 11 points. The average score among black students rose by 10.
Over the same nine years, the average score in New Mexico went from 141 to 143.
As for the 2007 performance gap between Anglo and Hispanic students, it was "not significantly different from that of 1998." The same was true of the gap between students who are and aren't eligible for free or reduced lunch— a measure of poverty.
The report does hold some good news for New Mexico.
The percentage of eighth graders with basic writing skills rose from 61 to 65. And the performance gap between Anglo and Hispanic students, while still significant, was seven points smaller than the gap nationally.
The state's percentage of proficient writers, however, stayed at a stubborn 17. That compares to 29 percent nationally.
For all its numbers, the report sheds little light on why some states do better than others.
"No one thing boosts scores like we saw in this report," said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation's largest urban school districts.
Casserly said the council was working on its own study of why some states do well. But the things that appear to make a difference, he said, were "unsurprising"— basics like staff development and data mining, and doing them "extremely well."
New Mexico Education Secretary Veronica Garcia did not return a message requesting comment on the report.
The state has ranked well in recent years on the quality of its educational standards and its system for holding school districts accountable.
The state has also been investing heavily in supplemental programs for pre-kindergarten through third grade, banking on research that identifies a strong academic career in the early grades as the key to success later on.
The writing test was administered to 139,900 eighth grade students across 45 states, 10 large urban districts, and schools run by the U.S. Department of Defense.