Scores on the most important nationwide math test increased only marginally for eighth graders and not at all for fourth graders, continuing a six-year trend of sluggish results that suggest the nation will not come close to bringing all children to proficiency by 2014, a central goal of the Bush-era federal education law, No Child Left Behind.
Thirty-nine percent of fourth graders and 34 percent of eighth graders scored at or above the proficient level on the test, administered this spring.
“The trend is flat; it’s a plateau. Scores are not going anywhere, at least nowhere important,” said Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research organization in Washington. “That means that eight years after enactment of No Child Left Behind, the problems it set out to solve are not being solved, and now we’re five years from the deadline and we’re still far, far from the goal.” READ FULL STORY
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