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A slide from a Department of Education presentation about the city's NAEP scores

New York City students posted essentially flat scores on a national exam considered the most accurate measure of student progress.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as NAEP, or the nation’s report card, is given every two years to fourth- and eighth-graders across the country. Statewide results, which came out last month, showed that New York was one of just two states to post significant score drops.

In local results released today, city students bucked that trend. Their scores stayed flat or rose or fell by degrees that are not statistically significant.

District-level results were released today for 21 districts across the country that participate in a more detailed study. Only one of the districts, North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg, posted significant gains in reading, and nine districts showed significant gains in math.

Still, only about a third of city fourth-graders met or exceeded NAEP’s benchmark for proficiency in reading and math, about half as many as who met proficiency standards on this year’s state tests. It was the discrepancy between state test scores and NAEP results that triggered state officials to acknowledge last year that the state’s test scores were inflated.

On this year’s NAEP exam, New York City students’ reading scores dropped by three points, the same as statewide. Eighth-graders’ math scores fell by one point, less than the three points that scores across the state declined this year.

Fourth-graders’ reading scores didn’t change, while eighth-graders’ reading scores increased by two points, more than the single point gain experienced statewide and nationally.

None of the city’s shifts since 2009 were considered statistically significant. But gains in fourth- and eighth-grade math scores and fourth-grade reading scores since 2002, when the district’s performance was first measured, are still up significantly. (more…)

News on “the nation’s report card,” sent home today by the U.S. Department of Education, is not good for New York State.

New York was one of just two states to post statistically significant declines on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a biennial assessment administered by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The state’s fourth-grade math scores fell for the second straight time, from a high of 243 points in 2007 to 238 this year. Scores on the eighth-grade math test and the reading tests showed no significant change.

Just 35 percent of fourth-graders in New York scored proficient or higher on the exam, considered the only reliable yardstick for measuring educational progress in a field of flawed state assessments. On the state’s own tests, whose scores dropped last year when state officials acknowledged that they had been inflated, more than 66 percent of fourth-graders were considered proficient in math.

It was the discrepancy between state test scores and NAEP results that triggered state officials to acknowledge that the state’s test scores were inflated in the first place.

State Education Commissioner John King called today’s results “disappointing and unacceptable.” In a statement, he said new state tests aligned with the Common Core curriculum standards, set to be given for the first time in three years, would improve New York students’ performance on the NAEP. (more…)

Fourth grade students' scores were flat this year, but have increased since 2003 and 2005.

City students have made no significant improvements on a national math test in the last two years, but years of two and three-point gains have led to a general trend of modestly increasing scores.

Eighth grade students did not make meaningful gains this year. Reflecting a pattern of fourth-graders outperforming eighth graders, the older students have seen fewer score gains since 2003.

Fourth and eighth grade students’ scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, have been statistically flat since 2007, though both groups have made gains since 2005 and 2003.

NAEP scores are typically released on a state-by-state basis, but in 2002 several large cities agreed to have their own figures reported separately. The data does not include test scores from students in charter schools. Compared to students in other large cities, New York City’s fourth-graders beat the average score, while its eighth grade students’ scores met the average — a pattern that has held constant since 2003. (more…)