Math test scores down for the first time in 25 years

For 25 years, through four presidential administrations, U.S. schools could rely on one small truth: Math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP test, always went up.

Not this year.

The latest results of the biennial tests, given to thousands of students and nicknamed “The Nation’s Report Card,” show a first-ever drop in math scores for the randomly selected students in both fourth- and eighth-grade students who took them earlier this year.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan acknowledged that the news “isn’t great,” but said the dip “doesn’t come as a big surprise.” Peggy Carr, the federal official who oversees the tests, cautioned against reading too much into the development, saying, “One downturn does not a trend make.” Carr said she would withhold judgment until 2017.

The new scores, released Wednesday by the National Center for Education Statistics, show the average fourth- and eighth-grade math scores declined two and three points, respectively, between 2013 and 2015. The average eighth-grade reading score dropped three points. Fourth-grade reading scores were essentially unchanged.

Since 1990, scores in both math and reading have moved steadily, if slowly, higher. Until this year, math scores had never dropped in either grade. NAEP scale scores range from 0 to 500.

Carr ruled out “test fatigue” on the part of students, saying researchers who looked into that found no evidence that students in 2015 were any less engaged in the test than in past years.

But even Carr, a developmental psychologist, said the drops surprised her.

“This isn’t a pattern that we saw coming,” she said. “In that sense, it was an unexpected downturn. But we’ll see. I think the bigger point is that we’ll see if this is going to be a trend that will continue.”

The Obama administration last week moved to limit the time students spend taking and preparing for standardized tests, saying testing is “consuming too much instructional time and creating undue stress for educators and students.” In its plan to reduce how much testing takes place in school, the administration took at least part of the blame for “unnecessary” testing without a clear purpose.

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