Front Page  opinion  editorials

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Latest Test Scores Put Reforms in Perspective

.
    Another set of dismal standardized test scores, another round of hand-wringing and searching for silver linings.
    This time, we learn that less than half of the state's public school students are proficient in math. They're not a whole lot better at science and reading, and the achievement gap between categories of students isn't closing.
    About 125,000 public school students took mandatory tests last spring. Third- through ninth-graders and 11-graders were tested in reading and math; grades three through nine also were tested in science.
    The scores show a significant dip in performance in the last years of elementary school and early years of middle school. The overall rate of proficiency in science and math peaks in third grade, according to results, and reading peaks in fifth grade. That seems to question current conventional wisdom that a pre-school to prepare children to do better in the earlier grades is the key.
    Then reading scores bottom out in sixth grade; math hits the floor in seventh grade; and science crashes in eighth grade.
    Perhaps state Public Education Secretary Veronica Garcia's administration will be able to decipher the academic slump that seems to occur during the transition from elementary to middle school.
    Though Garcia notes that things are slowly improving, the latest test scores highlight just how far education has to go to become proficient itself.