Nation's Report Card measures skills of fourth-, eighth- and 12th- graders
By Peter Sachs / The Bulletin
WASHINGTON - Oregon's top school testing official labeled as
"good news" a new federal government survey showing that science
achievement among Oregon's elementary- and middle-school
students has stayed flat in the last four years.
The Nation's Report Card, as the survey is commonly known, showed Oregon students performing near the national average in science skills, but not any better or worse than the last time the survey was conducted.
"I think it's good news, given that we have some of the most limited resources allocated to schools, that we are still performing near the middle of the pack," said Tony Albert, the Oregon Department of Education's testing director.
Oregon ranks 29th in per-pupil spending among all states, putting it slightly below the national average.
The report, released Wednesday, measured the science skills of more than 300,000 fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders in 2005. Similar reports by the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the federal Education Department, released in October tracked reading and math achievement in 2005.
Nationwide, students in only a handful of states showed improvement in science achievement between 2000 and 2005. In Oregon, as in every other state, black and Hispanic students didn't perform as well as white students.
The trend nationally on the science exams was for modest gains at the fourth-grade level, followed by a rut in eighth grade, a pattern that was mirrored in Oregon. The tests are also given to 12th- graders, but their scores were not broken down on state levels.
Bend-La Pine School District Research Director Bob Olsen said Wednesday he had not yet reviewed the report. He said the district does not currently track how its own students perform in the sciences, since it is not yet mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act.
"No matter how you look at the results, flat or declining performance of older students is not good news," said Davin Winick, the chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, an independent, bipartisan group set up by Congress to oversee policy for the Nation's Report Card.
In 2005, Oregon's fourth-graders scored an average of 151 out of 300 points on the science test, slightly above both the national average of 149 points and Oregon's year-2000 average of 148 points. But those differences are not significant, the report said.
Eighth-graders in the state scored 153 points on average last year, no different than in previous years. That number was higher than that the national average among eighth-graders, which was 147 points.
In the 2003-04 school year, the most recent data available, Oregon ranked 29th nationwide in per-pupil spending in elementary and secondary schools, at slightly more than $7,600 per pupil, U.S. Census Bureau information showed. That amount is significantly less than the $13,000 that top-ranked New Jersey spent on each of its students, and put the state slightly below the national average of $8,300 spent per pupil.
Oregon has had its own science standards in place since 2001. Alpert said that the standards are similar to the expectations used in the Nation's Report Card.
Statewide testing last year revealed that 75 percent of fifth-graders and 65 percent of eighth-graders met or exceeded state science standards. But those figures have fluctuated and have not changed markedly since students were first tested in science performance.
In 2001, eighth-graders had a 60 percent pass rate, and in 2002, the first year the science test was given to Oregon fifth-graders, 74 percent of those pupils met or exceeded standards.
"The fact that we are still in the middle of the road is informative," Alpert said.
Oregon Deputy Schools Superintendent Pat Burk said state officials were concerned about data showing that students in urban areas had outperformed their counterparts in the state's more rural reaches.
"Rural schools have a difficult time attracting and holding strong science teachers," he said. "In a small high school, I might have one science teacher, who is teaching the standard Oregon curriculum. And in a small school without much money, a good lab, supplies and equipment can be a problem."