Behind D.C. Schools’ Math Gains, an Obstacle

Last week’s federal report card on math achievement was a welcome piece of good news for D.C. public schools. Although the District still lags far behind the country’s top-performing systems, the report card showed fourth- and eighth-graders making strides at a faster pace over the past two years than cities including Atlanta, Chicago and New York.

But what remains embedded in the latest numbers from the National Assessment of Educational Progress is the persistent achievement gap between African American and white students both locally and nationally. The average scores of white D.C. fourth-graders over the past two years grew from 262 to 270 (on a scale of 500), but their African American peers’ rose just three points, from 209 to 212. The achievement gap actually grew between 2007 and 2009, from 53 to 58 points.

African American progress in the eighth grade remained essentially flat, dipping a statistically insignificant one point, from 245 to 244. Average white scores were not included in the test results because the sample size wasn’t large enough.

The picture across a six-year stretch isn’t more encouraging. The gap separating white and black fourth-graders in 2003, when the first NAEP in the District was given, was 60 scale points (262 to 202). Although the scores achieved by children in both groups have increased during this period, the difference has barely narrowed to 58.

Some education advocates in the District expressed concern last week that the gains celebrated by Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) were propelled largely by white students who are already high achievers.

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Rhee said the District needs to continue to find better ways to address the needs of low-achieving students. This fall, for example, some teachers are being trained to use a new reading curriculum, the Wilson Reading System, targeted to students in the upper elementary and middle school grades who didn’t master the basics of reading early in their school careers and are significantly behind their peers. “Everyday Mathematics,” a K-through-sixth-grade math curriculum emphasizing games and real-life experiences that was brought to the District under former superintendent Clifford Janey, is credited with some of the NAEP progress reported last week.

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Others say that the NAEP’s results highlight the question of whether Rhee can continue to lift the overall performance of the system and still provide the additional money and resources for low-performing schools that will be necessary to narrow the gap.

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Janey, now superintendent of schools in Newark, said in an interview this week that one essential element to closing the achievement gap is to lengthen the traditional public school year, currently 180 days in the District, to compete with charter schools.

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