Here’s a little more detail on how students fare on the different tests (click to enlarge):

Also Thursday, I ran across a story about how New York City officials want to give math assessments to kindergarteners. As you might imagine, there’s some debate over whether that’s too young an age for standardized testing. The full story is here.

Feel free to share your thoughts on these assessments or the Needs Improvement list below.

Wendy Kleinman
The Oklahoman

Researchers found that they couldn’t tell whether the No Child Left Behind Act has indeed left fewer children behind. But what the law did give the researchers was more data because of the required testing and reporting.

Here’s what that data showed about Oklahoma.

-The percent of all students proficient in reading and math saw a moderate-to-large gain all levels — except middle school reading — from 2002 to 2007. The percent of middle school students proficient in reading saw a slight gain.

-In reading, the achievement gap narrowed between blacks and whites, Hispanics and whites, and American Indians and whites on all grade levels except for high school Hispanics. There was no change in the gap between high school Hispanic and white students in reading.

-In math, the gap narrowed between whites and the other racial groups on elementary and middle school levels, but widened across all racial groups at the high school level.

Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter