Mixed bag for Utah pupils

Utah students as a whole are scoring above the national average, according to the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress. But when broken down into ethnic groups, their marks are consistently lower than their national cohorts.

Leaders say the report is good news and bad news — collectively the state is doing well, but an achievement gap is holding strong.

NAEP — known as "the Nation's Report Card" —compares various states' achievements in reading and math. The test is taken by a sample fourth- and eighth-grade students in each state; 200 schools participated in Utah.

"The NAEP provides a valuable perspective and allows people to ask, 'How is Utah doing compared to other states,' " said Hal Sanderson, NAEP coordinator for the State Office of Education. "But we can't put everything into it because only a sample of students are tested."

Nationwide, the report showed students are getting better at math, but their reading performance is mixed, with slight progress in grade four and a slip backward in grade eight.

"What we've got here is a pretty satisfactory elementary performance — better math and reading," said Darvin Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, the bipartisan panel that oversees the test. "The eighth-grade performance is much more mixed."

The strongest results came in math, particularly in fourth grade, where scores were up for every major racial and ethnic group since the last test in 2003. Math scores increased slightly in eighth grade, where black and Hispanic students narrowed their gap with whites.

President Bush, meeting with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings at the White House Wednesday, called the report encouraging.

"It shows there's an achievement gap in America that is closing," Bush said.

Overall nationally in math, 36 percent of fourth-graders could handle challenging material, up from 32 percent in 2003. Among eighth-graders, 30 percent reached at least that "proficient" level, up from 29 percent.

In reading, scores weren't so solid.

The average reading score rose one point to 219 on a scale of 500 in fourth grade, a statistically significant increase. But only 31 percent of fourth-graders showed mastery of demanding material — the figure that typically matters the most. That performance was flat compared to 2003.

The same share of eighth-graders, 31 percent, were proficient in reading. That performance actually dropped compared to 2003.

"There's no dancing around the flat eighth-grade performance in reading. I think it's a national problem," Winick said.