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Saturday, September 8, 2007

State's Scores In Reading Improve

By Barry Massey
The Associated Press
    SANTA FE— New Mexico's elementary and secondary students continue to struggle in math but perform better in reading, according to test scores released Friday by the state Public Education Department.
    More than half of students in grades 3-9 and 11 lacked proficiency in math during the last school year.
    Fourth-graders performed best, with 46 percent of them proficient in math in 2006-07. That was up from about 41 percent proficiency in grade 4 in previous year testing and about 39 percent in the 2004-2005 school year.
    The low was 25.2 percent proficiency among seventh-graders last year, but that was up by almost 2 percentage points from the previous year and an improvement from 19.8 percent in 2005.
    Reading scores were better than math in all grades. About half or more of students in grades 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 were proficient. Less than half were proficient in reading in grades 6, 9 and 11.
    The best performance came among fifth-graders, with 58.8 percent of them proficient in reading. That was up from about 57.2 percent the previous year and 56.9 percent in 2005. The low was 36.9 percent proficiency among sixth-graders, and that dropped from 40.4 percent the previous year and 40.9 percent in 2005.
    In science, third-graders had the highest proficiency— 79 percent— and that changed little from 78.7 percent proficiency the previous year but was up from 76.7 percent in 2005. The low was 23.2 percent in the eighth grade and that also showed little change from 23.5 percent the previous year but was down from 24.6 percent in 2005.
    Overall, science proficiency declined in each grade from 3 through 8. But there was an increase in grade 9, with 38 percent of those students at or above proficiency.
    The test results showed an achievement gap continuing among ethnic and racial groups, poor children, those with disabilities and students learning English. Anglo and Asian students generally fared better in the tests than blacks, Hispanics and American Indians.
    Indian students had the lowest proficiency scores in reading, math and science among all ethnic and racial groups. For example, 19.2 percent of Indians in sixth grade were proficient at reading, compared with 30.3 percent among blacks, 30.7 percent among Hispanics, 54.2 percent among Caucasians and 56.5 percent among Asians. All of those scores were lower than the previous year.
    However, Education Secretary Veronica Garcia said progress was made. She pointed to "modest" increases from the previous year's proficiency scores in a number of grades and among some subgroups of students.
    In math, for example, there were proficiency gains in all but the third grade. There were math improvements in most grades among minority students, as well as English language learners, those with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students.
    "While I'm pleased that overall scores are moving in the right direction, we must remain steadfast in our efforts to accelerate and to improve student achievement," Garcia said in a statement.
    About 199,000 students were tested in the 2006-07 school year— math and reading tests for grades 3-9 and 11 and science tests in grades 3-9.
    Garcia encouraged parents to focus on the test results for their children and their local schools. The department published test results for schools on its Web site.



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