Maine’s fourth- and eighth-graders are treading water in mathematics, according to results of a national test known as “the nation’s report card” released Thursday.

Three-quarters of fourth-graders and two-thirds of eighth-graders in Maine scored at or below the basic achievement level on the exam, called the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

After significant gains in the early 1990s, the score for Maine’s eighth-graders on the 2000 test was unchanged from 1996.

However, the score of 284 on a scale of zero to 500 still was good enough to keep the eighth-graders significantly higher than the national average. Maine tied for fourth among the 39 states and five other jurisdictions, such as the District of Columbia, that participated in the eighth-grade exam. Maine was tied with Kansas and Kentucky, but trailed Minnesota, Montana and Nebraska.

The score of 231 for Maine fourth-graders was a statistically insignificant slip of two points from 1996 to 2000. It left them tied for 10th-best in the nation among the 40 states and six jurisdictions that took the fourth-grade exam. Maine was tied with Michigan, North Dakota and Ohio, but was behind Minnesota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Texas, Kansas, North Carolina and Vermont.

“There’s no doubt about it, the numbers are flat,” said Daniel Hupp, a math specialist in the Maine Department of Education.

He noted that since the state assessments’ inception in 1990, Maine’s fourth- and eighth-grade math scores have been among the highest in the nation.

But except for eighth-graders from 1992 to 1996, the scores have not progressed.

State Education Commissioner J. Duke Albanese said in a news release, “Maine people should be proud of our students’ continued excellent performance on national assessments.”

“Although we are certainly pleased to perform better than other states, our real goal is for every student to be proficient and to compete favorably with students from school systems all over the world.”

The NAEP is conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education.

It reveals pupil performance in two ways: One is the scaled score. The other is by showing the percentage of students in each state who scored in each of four achievement levels. The levels are Below Basic, Basic, Proficient and Advanced.

Despite their high standing compared with other states, 68 percent of Maine eighth-graders fell into the Below Basic or Basic achievement levels on the math test, while 32 percent fell into the Proficient or Advanced categories.

Minnesota eighth-graders had the best showing in the nation in this regard, with only 60 percent falling into the Below Basic or Basic levels, and the remaining 40 percent reaching the Proficient or Advanced levels.

Among Maine’s fourth-graders, 76 percent scored in the Below Basic and Basic levels, while 24 percent reached the Proficient or Advanced categories.

Minnesota and Massachusetts tied for the lowest percentage of students in the Below Basic and Basic categories at 66 percent.

Hupp said the achievement results for Maine and the nation’s fourth-graders confirm international tests that show the United States has far too many pupils in the bottom levels in math.

These kinds of results were one of the major motivations behind the Maine Learning Results, the state’s new K-12 academic standards, Hupp said. “We now have standards we can aim toward.”

He hopes the standards, which are not scheduled to be implemented fully until 2003, will begin “to pay off” in the near future with higher NAEP and other achievement scores.

In 2000, the NAEP used a sample of approximately 14,000 fourth-graders from 742 schools and 16,000 eighth-graders from 744 schools from across the country to provide national results.

Separately, NAEP tested approximately 2,500 students in each state to obtain results for the individual states, according to the executive summary of “The Nation’s Report Card: Mathematics 2000.”

The NAEP is administered every four years in even-numbered years. While the math exam was given in 1992, 1996 and 2000, students were tested in reading in 1992, 1994 and 1998.

A NAEP writing test also was given in 1998. A science test was given in 1996 and in 2000, the results of which won’t be released until October.