Mass. Students Continued Strong NAEP Performance
BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts students continue to perform well on national standardized tests.
Gov. Deval Patrick announced Tuesday that Bay State fourth graders tied for first, and eighth graders finished second, in the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress science exams.
"These results continue our record of nation-leading student achievement here in Massachusetts," Patrick said in a statement issued as he visited the Jireh Swift Elementary School in New Bedford. "Our future success as a commonwealth is directly tied to our ability to provide our students with a quality education, and today's results confirm that high expectations and hard work are paying off."
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Bernice Corpuz reports.
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The fourth graders tied with states including New Hampshire, Virginia, Maine and North Dakota. The eighth graders were one notch below North Dakota.
The tests were administered in the fall of 2009, along with similar NAEP tests in math and reading. Their results were announced last year. The fourth graders were first in reading and tied for first in math; the eighth graders were first in math and tied for first in reading.
In 2007 and 2005, Massachusetts students finished first or tied for first in all tests. But the test was updated in 2009 and can't be directly compared.
The NAEP tests assess samples of students in all 50 states and report state-level results at grades 4 and 8.
In Massachusetts, about 7,400 students were randomly selected to take the exams.
On the 2009 science exam, Massachusetts fourth graders had an average scaled score of 160, above the national average of 149. At grade eight, they also averaged 160, again another national average of 149.
Student testing became a flashpoint in last year's gubernatorial race.
Patrick committed the state to a curriculum overhaul pushed by the Obama administration, prompting Republican rival Charles Baker to warn that the Democratic governor was also trying to abandon the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test -- a requirement for graduation.
Patrick countered that while he supported the federal curriculum changes, he would not support replacing the MCAS with a national test -- now being designed by states -- if that test were inferior.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
