Mixed messages on math, as 12th-graders falter

For the past 30 years, the surest sign that education reform has been making a difference has been student achievement in mathematics.

While scores in reading have barely budged - despite big changes in curriculum and heavy public investment - math gains have been strong and consistent across regions, racial and ethnic groups, and grade levels.

That trend is continuing - with important exceptions - according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation's most respected and comprehensive test.

Results of the NAEP 2000 Mathematics Assessment, released yesterday, show that 4th- and 8th-graders are ahead of where they were in 1996, but 12th-graders lost ground in the last four years. And large gaps in achievement between white and minority students have persisted.

The lack of progress among high schoolers, to some experts, suggests that school-reform efforts have focused too much on younger grades, and not enough on following through in the teen years.

"High schools are very hard to change, because of their departmental structure," says Jack Jennings, director of the Washington-based Center on Education Policy. "Reformers go where it is easy, which is toward the early end of schooling."

That may be changing. More federal funding is beginning to come on line for high school reform. And foundations are looking hard at what can be done in middle school and high schools.

But the scores released yesterday appear to throw cold water on expectations that efforts to improve early-childhood education, made in past years, would by now ripple upward and boost high-school performance.

Education experts see many factors that make high schools the most difficult level of American education to improve:

• They are big (some top 5,000 students) and sometimes dangerous.

• For students who have fallen behind, the sense of frustration and failure can run deep. The practice of tracking, in which students are segregated by skill levels, lowers the expectations of many students.

• For teachers and would-be reformers, bureaucratic lethargy can stifle efforts to change.

When students do fall behind, it's easier to catch up during early years than later ones. For example, if a 10th-grader is reading at the 3rd grade level, mighty efforts might help, but still leave him several grades behind.

"You can spend an awful lot of time trying to improve high schools and have nothing to show for it," says Will Jordan, associate director of the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

All these factors help explain a three-decade trend: that math scores in high school are poor relative to those posted in lower grades.

"Unfortunately, this pattern has shown up repeatedly on international comparisons, with US students doing relatively well in math in the early grades but falling toward the bottom by the end of high school," says Debra Paulson, an eighth grade math teacher and member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which set achievement standards for the NAEP.

Only 17 percent of high school students are now proficient in mathematics, according to NAEP. That compares to 26 percent of 4th graders and 27 percent of 8th graders. "Proficient," in the context of this test, means "competency over challenging subject matter." It is a higher standard than "minimum competency" or even "basic grade level."

The NAEP noted several issues that may have affected 12th-graders taking the test:

Some 71 percent of the students reported working at a part-time job. Students working 21 hours or more each week scored the lowest.

Forty-one percent either took no math courses or did no math homework. Students who did not do homework scored lower than students who did.

Nearly 2 in 3 reported watching at least two or three hours of television a day. These students scored lowest.

NAEP data show that students who do well in math tend to take more rigorous coursework with better-trained teachers. Students who do poorly tend to be taught by teachers who majored in some subject other than mathematics.