Kennedy on MA NAEP Results

Press Release

KENNEDY ON MA NAEP RESULTS

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, released the following statement in response to the report released today by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

"These national test scores show that the hard work of teachers, parents and students in Massachusetts is paying off. Once again, Massachusetts leads the nation in reading and math.

These scores are reason to celebrate, but they're also cause for resolve in finishing the job. There's more to do in our schools to close the troubling gaps in achievement and opportunity in too many of our schools, especially with minority students.

The people of Massachusetts understand that education is the key to our competitiveness in the global economy and opens doors of opportunity for our children. I applaud Governor Patrick for his efforts to strengthen education, sustain these gains, and address the challenges that lie ahead.

We'll do all we can at the national level to improve the No Child Left Behind law so that it works better for our teachers, school children and schools. And we'll fight for resources to get the job done.

Just imagine how much more progress we would see today if President Bush had invested in school reform instead of investing in a failed war in Iraq.

We could have solved the teacher shortage crisis, and hired almost two million new teachers needed for the next decade for the cost of just over six months in Iraq.

For the cost of only 49 days in Iraq, we could fully-fund our commitment to leave no child behind this next school year, rather than short-changing this important program as the Administration has done year after year to the tune of 56 billion dollars since its enactment.

Nearly 15 years ago, the Commonwealth made a genuine commitment to raise standards, measure progress, evaluate schools, and put good teachers in every classroom. While other states have struggled to implement a quality accountability system, the consistency between the recent performance on the MCAS and students achievement on the NAEP shows that Massachusetts standards and assessments are among the best in the nation. It's clear that these essential reforms - and those who have worked so hard to implement them - will pay dividends for our students for years to come.

And now today our students in Massachusetts show some of the strongest performance in math on the NAEP, where fourth graders scored 252 on the assessment - 13 points higher than the nation, and an improvement of 5 points since 2005. In eighth grade, Massachusetts students scored 298 - 18 higher than the nation, and an improvement of 6 points since 2005.

More students in Massachusetts excelled in math on the NAEP than anywhere else in the nation - eleven percent of fourth graders and fifteen percent of eighth graders reached advanced levels on the assessment, compared with five percent of fourth graders and seven percent of eighth graders in other states. And our students continue to achieve at high levels on the NAEP assessment in reading.

This progress is hopeful, but it's clear that our work is far from over. Today's results reveal, as the MCAS results also do, that closing the persistent gaps in achievement and opportunity remain our greatest challenge. All students, and especially minority students, have steadily improved on the NAEP since the early 1990s. Yet more remains to be done. In reading, 77 percent of white fourth graders in Massachusetts reached basic levels on the NAEP, compared to just 46 percent of African American and 49 percent of Latino students."

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