(September 1998)

This report presents findings from analyses of student achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress prepared by the Planning and Evaluation Service based on special tabulations provided by the Educational Testing Service in conjunction with the National Center for Education Statistics.

The purpose of the report is to examine student achievement in the context of school poverty in the United States. Given the U.S. Department of Education?s long standing concern with the gap in achievement between students in high-poverty schools and their more advantaged peers, this report presents analyses of recent trend, national, and state NAEP assessment results in reading and math for 4th grade and 9-year-old students in high and low-poverty schools. In the report, high-poverty schools are defined as schools where more than 75 percent of students receive free and reduced priced lunch. Low-poverty schools are defined as schools where 25 or fewer students receive free and reduced price lunch.

KEY FINDINGS

• While the gap in math and reading achievement for 9-year-old students in high and low-poverty schools is significant, there are some recent signs of improvement.
  • The gap in average math scores between 9-year-olds in high and low-poverty schools was 22 points in 1996, down from a 28-point gap in 1992 and a 24-point gap in 1994. While an improvement, as a ten-point difference on NAEP is approximately equal to one grade level, the average math achievement for 9-year-olds in high-poverty schools still falls more than two grade levels behind performance in low-poverty schools.

  • The achievement gap in reading between 9-year-old students in high and low-poverty schools is substantially larger than the gap in math: 38 points in 1996. Although down from a 40-point gap in 1992, this represents a three to a four-grade level gap in student performance.

• In math, there has been an upward trend in achievement for 9-year-old and 4th grade students in high-poverty schools on NAEP since 1992.
  • Data from the 1996 NAEP long-term trend math assessment show a significant rise in the scores of 9-year-olds in high-poverty schools since 1992. The average math scale score for students in high-poverty schools in 1996 represents a significant, almost one grade level, improvement in performance since 1992. On the NAEP national math main assessment, the percentage of 4th grade students in high-poverty schools scoring at least at the basic level was 42 percent in 1996, up from only 26 percent in 1992. Results from the main math assessment also show a rise in the percentage of students in high-poverty schools scoring at or above the proficient level on NAEP. The percentage of 4th grade students in high-poverty schools scoring at or above the proficient level in math more than doubled during the period, from 4 percent in 1992 to 10 percent in 1996. The NAEP state main assessment reveals in 27 states a significant increase in the percentage of 4th grade students in high-poverty schools scoring at or above the basic level in math between 1992 and 1996.

• Reading presents a more complicated picture. The gap in reading performance between students in high and low-poverty schools is dramatically larger than the gap in math and NAEP reading scores have been stagnant, with no significant improvements across levels of school poverty.
  • Although data from the NAEP long-term trend assessment show an upward turn in the average reading scores of 9-year-olds between 1992 and 1996, results from the NAEP national and state assessments tell a different story. Because the main NAEP assessment in reading was not administered in 1996, this report compares only results from the 1992 and 1994 NAEP main and state reading assessments. (Results from the 1998 NAEP main reading assessment are expected to be released in January 1999.) During the short period of comparison, the NAEP main reading results show little change in reading achievement across schools overall, and a decrease in the percentage of 4th grade students in high-poverty schools scoring at or above the basic level in reading -- from 33 percent in 1992 to 26 percent in 1994. State NAEP reading results reveal that only five states experienced a significant increase in the percentage of students in high-poverty schools scoring at or above the basic level in reading between 1992 and 1994.

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