Glossing over the fact that substantial numbers of U.S. children, including many Maine children, are failing to achieve in school, the article “U.S. education assessment shows better math scores” (BDN, Sept. 26), highlighted gains of a few percentile points in math and a slight increase in reading scores among elementary and middle school students over the past year. President Bush, we are told, “welcomed the news, calling it proof that his policies are ‘producing positive results for students across the country.'”

In Maine, the article continues, the trend in math scores showed an increase from 2005 to 2007, with 42 percent of fourth-graders and 34 percent of eighth-graders now scoring at or above proficiency level. Over the same time period, reading scores for fourth-graders inched up to 36 percent, while results for eighth-graders saw a one point decrease to 37 percent. Translated, this means that a whopping 58 percent of Maine fourth-graders and 66 percent of Maine’s eighth-graders scored below proficiency levels in math, and a mind-boggling 64 percent of fourth-graders and 63 percent of eight-graders are below proficiency in reading. Yet, from the celebratory tone of the article, you would never guess that the overwhelming majority of fourth- and eighth-grade pupils in Maine are failing to meet minimal standards in math and reading.

The Maine Educational Assessment, another measure of student performance in math and reading, further breaks down the numbers by community, and it shows that Bangor students’ 2005-06 test scores were considerably higher than those of other Maine students (Bangor Communique, Spring 2007).

For instance, 73 percent of Bangor fourth-graders (but only 59 percent of Maine fourth-graders) met or exceeded proficiency levels in math, while 65 percent of Bangor eighth-graders (compared with 45 percent of Maine eighth-graders) scored at or above proficiency levels. Reading scores are also higher for Bangor students; 70 percent of Bangor fourth-graders (but only 61 percent of Maine fourth-graders) scored at or above proficiency levels in reading; while 76 percent of Bangor eighth-graders (compared with 59 percent of Maine eighth-graders) met or exceeded minimum proficiency standards.

Bangor is doing something right. At the same time, constructively rather than pessimistically, we cannot afford to overlook that more than a quarter (27 percent) of Bangor fourth-graders, and over a third (35 percent) of our eighth-graders are not doing well in math, or that 30 percent of Bangor fourth-graders and 24 percent of our eight-graders are lagging in reading. These children are Bangor’s invisible students.

Bangor students are indeed outperforming their cohorts elsewhere in Maine. Yet, the test scores presented above, which tell us that a significant proportion of Bangor school children partially meet standards or do not meet standards in reading and math, are hardly cause for rejoicing.

Thus, to address the issue of low student achievement, we must first admit that there is a problem. Lowering expectations of students, social promotion, making excuses, or skirting around the issue by publishing achievement test scores without adequate interpretive information, is not going to solve the problem. The supermarket cashier who cannot make change, the elementary-school student who, as related to me by a Maine public school teacher, had forgotten how to write a capital “I,” because he spends so much of his time texting computer messages, and the first year college student who cannot read the required textbook for a course, exemplify the problems in Maine classrooms and schools. A discouraging number of students in my own college classrooms here in Maine and in Massachusetts arrive on campus fresh out of high school, needing remedial work in math and written expression.

As these examples and the national and state measures of student learning clearly indicate, we are failing significant numbers of Maine and other U.S. students by not bringing them up to a level of proficiency in traditional academic subjects, which are the prerequisites for performing well in higher education classrooms and post-graduation employment.

I am running for a seat on the Bangor School Committee this November because I believe that we need to (and can) do a better job of teaching children basic academic skills. In short, I’d like all of, not just some of, Maine’s children to have the best possible chance for a successful future. And the best way to prepare students for success is to give them a solid academic foundation.

Let’s begin in Bangor!

Josephine A. “Jo” Bright of Bangor is a semiretired professor of human growth and development. She has more than 20 years’ experience in the health, human services, counseling, educational research and teaching fields.