MATH SCORES IN 3 GRADES ADD UP TO PROGRESS, U.S. OFFICIALS SAY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 13, 1993                   TAG: 9301130172
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
MATH SCORES IN 3 GRADES ADD UP TO PROGRESS, U.S. OFFICIALS SAY
After years of grim news about the academic performance of American elementary and secondary school pupils, a new preliminary report indicates that the nation's students made significant gains in mathematics achievement from 1990 to 1992.
Overall average proficiency among American students has risen five points since 1990 in the fourth, 8th and 12th grades, the three grades tested, according to a preliminary report made public Tuesday by the National Assessment of Education Progress, a federal testing organization.
The report found some unevenness in the gains. Students in the Southeast lagged behind students in the Northeast, the central United States and the West. There was a significant decline in the average proficiency of eight-graders in poor urban areas. At all three grade levels, private-school students performed better than public-school students.
While 37 percent of the students tested failed to reach what was considered a basic level of achievement, it was an improvement over the last test in 1990, when 43 percent failed to reach that level.
Though troubled by the setbacks among the poor, education officials generally were buoyed by the results.
"This is a big jump in math scores," Education Secretary Lamar Alexander at a news conference said. "This is not like a one-point increase in the SAT scores," the Scholastic Aptitude Test for college admissions. "This is more like a half-grade increase in achievement."
But Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, criticized both the timing and the results of the tests. Full state-by-state results will be issued in the spring.
"`I would be curious to hear how the money-does-not-make-a-difference crowd of the outgoing administration explains the fact that test scores in disadvantaged urban districts just happened to stall during the past two years of a recession," he said.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB