Maine students excel, but scores still flat

AUGUSTA – Although Maine students have performed above the national average in mathematics and reading assessment tests, state officials believe more work is needed to improve scores.

“We aren’t satisfied with our students being just above average,” Wanda Monthey, a policy director for Maine’s Department of Education, said in a phone interview Wednesday.

The new statistics come from the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, which tested the two subjects in fourth and eighth grades across the country last year.

Maine’s scores are based on a sampling of about 3,000 students at each grade level. More than 700,000 students were tested nationally.

Maine Commissioner of Education Susan A. Gendron said Wednesday that despite students scoring above the national average, state scores remain flat. In response to those results, Gendron has asked her staff to examine successes in other states to provide guidance for Maine.

The test results show the biggest improvement in math with the percentage of Maine eighth-graders who scored proficient or better in that subject increasing from 30 percent in 2005, the last time the tests were administered, to 34 percent in 2007.

Still, Gendron said she is not satisfied with the relatively flat scores. She cited Massachusetts, which ranked first in the nation in both categories, and Vermont as states to emulate. In Massachusetts, for instance, scores show 51 percent of eighth-graders were working at proficient or advanced levels in math in 2007.

“I want us to understand what other states have done,” Gendron said in a press release. “How have they invested their dollars? In programming for students or in professional development?”

She said Massachusetts and Vermont both raised their reading scores noticeably in recent years. In particular, she said she wants to look at Massachusetts’ summer programming for children and high degree of involvement in education by the business community, among other programs in that state.

The NAEP is the only nationwide assessment that allows for state-to-state comparison every two years. The results are used by the federal government to measure a state’s progress under the No Child Left Behind law.

Maine’s average score for mathematics in grade four in the latest test was 242, compared to the national average of 239. Maine’s average score in 2005 was 241. Massachusetts had an average score of 252 in 2007. In Maine, 85 percent of fourth-graders scored at the basic achievement level or better, while 42 percent scored proficient or better.

The average grade-eight math score in Maine in 2007 was 286, compared to the national average of 280. The average score in 2005 was 281. In Massachusetts the average score was 298. Seventy-eight percent of Maine middle schoolers scored at the basic achievement level, with 34 percent testing at proficient or advanced.

In reading in 2007, Maine fourth-graders scored an average 226, six points higher than the national average. Maine’s average score in 2005 was 225. Massachusetts had an average score of 236 in 2007. Seventy-three percent of fourth-graders in Maine scored at the basic achievement level or better, while 36 percent were proficient or better.

For grade-eight reading, Maine students scored an average 270, compared to the national average of 261. The average score for 2005 was also 270. Massachusetts had an average score of 273. In Maine, 83 percent of eighth-graders scored at the basic achievement level or better. Thirty-seven percent of the middle schoolers read at proficient or advanced levels.

Gendron said the NAEP data will provide to the state’s Department of Education, as well as local school systems, vital information to help guide future activity to boost scores.

“We can see our strengths and also our weaknesses,” Gendron said. “We will be taking a hard look at the data, and at the successes here and in other states, to refocus our energies on strategies that will help our students improve their scores and continue to lead the nation in achievement.”