A wide achievement gap between white and minority students continues in Arizona and the nation, according to the most recent data from a federal test designed to measure states’ academic standards.
White students did much better than their minority counterparts in both reading and math, according to results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is administered every two years nationwide.
The NAEP, which is on a 500-point scale, tests fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders in reading, mathematics, science, writing and more. The data used for this story focuses on reading and math.
An analysis of Arizona’s NAEP scores in the past 10 years also showed that the state’s scores have generally been improving, but also that they are still below the national average in all categories except for fourth-grade math.
ACHIEVEMENT GAP
Nationally, black and Hispanic students are far less likely to be on grade level in math than their white counterparts. The White House last week highlighted that fact in its report titled “Giving Every Child a Fair Shot.”
Despite the fact that Hispanic public school students outnumbered Anglo students by nearly 50,000 in Arizona last school year, 55 percent of white fourth-graders were found to be proficient in math, while only 24 percent of black students and 28 percent of Hispanic students were deemed proficient. That gap of nearly 30 percentage points also shows up in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade reading and math.
“This is something that we’ve seen — not just in NAEP results,” said Charles Tack, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Education.
There are many factors to this equation, he said, including students’ socioeconomic status, language barrier and what resources their schools might or might not have. The state education department realizes that the achievement gap is a problem area that needs to be worked on.
The issue needs tackling from every direction by all those involved, including teachers, students, parents, schools and districts, he said.
“We know that there’s still a lot to do, and we know that funding can certainly help with that,” he said.
For H.T. Sanchez, the leader of Tucson’s largest school district, the minority achievement gap is no surprise as research has long shown a correlation between socioeconomic status, which is often tied to ethnicity, and outcomes on standardized tests.
That achievement gap becomes more obvious when testing an absolute standard like NAEP does — looking only at whether a student answered a question correctly, Sanchez said.
“If you have somebody who is coming from a home where literacy and numeracy is part of the daily dialogue and you give that person a test, they’re going to be proficient at a level you would expect based on their experience,” Sanchez said. “If you have another student who doesn’t have those experiences and you give them a test, it’s going to be reflective of their experience.”
As a result, the Tucson Unified School District has worked to close those experiential gaps tied to socioeconomic status as much as possible, Sanchez said, adding that the work must begin early on.
“The investment is in early education,” he said. “You have to get them in pre-K and expose them to numbers and letters and colors and shapes before they get to kindergarten so they are a lot closer to kids who come from homes with puzzles and shapes and story time as a standard piece of their environment.”
In a state that funds only half-day kindergarten, TUSD has prioritized early childhood education by allocating $6 million a year to provide all children with a full-day experience, and has worked to expand preschool offerings, Sanchez said.
“We have amazing teachers but what we don’t have are people who can make perpetual miracles happen without the appropriate level of support for our children that come from economically disadvantaged homes,” Sanchez said. “The research is very clear that the only counterbalance to poverty is early education. That’s where you invest your money. You either invest on the front end in pre-K or you invest it on the back end building prisons.”
GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT
Generally, Arizona’s NAEP scores have been steadily climbing in the past decade, as has the national average.
Arizona’s students showed more improvement in math than reading with an average of 10 points in increase in math for both grades as opposed to 4.5 points in reading.
The average score for Arizona’s fourth-graders in math went from 229 out of 500 in 2003 to 240 in 2013, aligning Arizona with the national average, which was 241.
There is no single catalyst in the improvement.
Pearl Esau, president and CEO of Expect More Arizona — an organization that champions a world-class education for all students, believes the adoption of higher academic standards in math and English will help continue that trajectory of improvement, but only when coupled with engaged parents, quality teaching, quality assessment and high standards.
AzMERIT, the test selected by the state to measure student performance, is expected to set a more realistic benchmark for student performance and though scores may initially be lower than before, Expect More Arizona says they will provide a truer view of how students are doing, similar to the way NAEP does.
A group of Arizona teachers is analyzing proficiency levels for AzMERIT and will provide a recommendation to the state board of education to determine how tests will be scored.
Ultimately, students will be labeled “highly proficient,” “proficient,” “partially proficient” or “minimally proficient.”
OTHER STATES
Despite the improvement, Arizona is still considered to be in the bottom half in academic standards and proficiency.
Out of the four categories evaluated — fourth-grade reading and math, and eighth-grade reading and math — only fourth-grade math scores have escaped the below-average label.
Lower academic standards in Arizona could be one of the reasons. As reported by the Star last week, the National Center for Education Statistics released a report comparing the rigorousness of states’ reading and math standards for fourth- and eighth-graders.
That report indicated that students in Arizona who are considered proficient according to state standards may not be proficient according to federal or other states’ standards.
Additional data showed that while 76.8 percent of Arizona’s fourth-graders met the state’s reading proficiency standard, only 27.6 percent were at or above the NAEP proficiency level.
Granted that NAEP sets a high bar and that this is data based on the 2013 test, “We know that this has been a trend that we’ve been closer to the bottom than we’d like,” Tack said.
TUSD’s Sanchez believes some of the discrepancy can be attributed to the fact that, unlike NAEP, Arizona factors growth into students’ test scores.
“So a student may fail a test but grow so much that they get rated a lot higher,” Sanchez said, adding he believes it’s appropriate to consider growth for gifted, mainstream and special education students to ensure they are gaining from the instruction.
Tack added that Arizona faces different challenges than some of the other states.
Fifty-five percent of this state’s students qualify for free and reduced lunch. There are unique challenges in serving students in hardship, he said.
There are also other factors, such as transportation. There are kids in Arizona who have to be bused many miles a week to and from school, Tack said. Kids in New York may not have the same issue.
