NAEP results show Tenn. is shortchanging students

November 13, 2005

In order to prepare students for today's global marketplace, schools must instill high standards and expect all students, regardless of background or socioeconomic status, to meet them before they move advance to the next grade.

One of the best means of measuring whether schools are succeeding or failing in such efforts is the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The NAEP tests in reading, science and math, now mandated for all states under the No Child Left Behind law, are universally recognized for their objective academic assessments of the nation's schoolchildren.

A recently released NAEP report card shows that nearly three-fourths of Tennessee's fourth-graders are reading below proficient levels; 73 percent of the state's eighth-graders lack similar reading skills. The 2005 NAEP Report indicates that Tennessee students' math skills are also sorely lacking. Seventy-two percent of fourth-graders lack proficient skill in math. Of Tennessee eighth-graders, 79 percent scored below the proficient level.

This latest NAEP survey records some improvement over the past 15 years, particularly in math. But Tennessee's reading scores have essentially remained all-but-stalled. In 1992, for example, 19 percent of fourth-graders were reading at a proficient level and four percent were advanced readers. The latest NAEP report shows 21 percent of fourth-graders now read at a proficient level; six percent are advanced.

The percentage of Tennessee eighth-graders reading at proficient or above is 26 percent, a statistically negligible increase over 1998, when 25 percent of the state's eighth-graders earned that distinction.

Tennessee students' increasing mastery of math in the fourth- and eighth-grades over the same 15-year period paints a somewhat brighter picture. Only nine percent of fourth-graders scored at or above proficient in math in 1992, a claim 28 percent of today's students can make. Among eighth-graders, only 12 percent scored at or above proficient in math in 1992; today, 21 percent hold that distinction.

While that progress in math is encouraging, Tennessee students still lag behind their peers. Nationwide, 35 percent of fourth-graders score at or above the proficient level; among eighth-graders, 29 percent can make that claim. Scores like these are the statistical equivalent of a plea for help and a call for action.

While a select few Tennessee students can obviously hold their own with the best in the nation, the average student continues to be shortchanged by a legislature that has taken a clearly inadequate business-as-usual approach to critical education issues. For at least the last decade, Tennessee lawmakers have been mired in a debate over school system equity, virtually ignoring a far more pressing problem of adequacy.

The result is that devising schemes to equitably divide the educational pie among the state's school districts has all but obscured the need for additional funding all around. As we've observed many times in this space, there isn't a single school district in Tennessee that doesn't spend more than the state minimum.

If these NAEP percentages remain unchanged, Tennessee's long-range ability to compete in and take full advantage of the new global, information-oriented economy will be compromised. Education is the best means available to prepare Tennessee to compete in the new knowledge economy. The Legislature needs to provide the funding to give Tennessee children the competitive edge they deserve.

Copyright 2005 Kingsport Times-News.

Quoting a Sullivan County official, he confirmed again what most in power here will not address: "I was in no way casting dispersions on the level of education at ETSU. When I said that "we have ETSU students flipping burgers," I was pointing out that we do not have the level of jobs in this area to sustain the number of graduates from our local colleges. Therefore, they are forced to either leave the area or take what jobs are available to them, which in most cases are in the service area," The trouble is there are no decent jobs even in trades as the Tarnoff report revealed. See:

• Businesses want job candidates already trained and ready for work.
• Survey: Region at risk due to critical skills gap Bunk
• Sitgreaves: 'Burger' comment aimed at lack of white-collar jobs in Tri-Cities
• The Brain Drain and Eastman Chemical
• School officials say dual-track education costing Tennessee jobs

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