Neglecting the Third R

Nationally, improvements in student performance come very gradually. That was evident, yet again, in the math results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Continued progress in the lower grades, fourth and eighth, was heartening. Students in those grades have made consistent progress since the early 1990s. But 12th-graders in this survey of 50,000 students did worse. They showed no gains since the last NAEP math exams, in 1996.

This is disturbing, since the last years of high school is when the beneficial effects of education reform should be greatest - just as youngsters prepare to launch into higher education or the job market.

Why aren't improvements in earlier grades carried through to high school? The likeliest answers lie in the way high schools are organized and in the quality of teaching. The funneling of children into large high schools, often with thousands of students, often means a diminishing of student-teacher interaction. Individual attention to bring along kids slow in math can be difficult to arrange. In math, particularly, qualified teachers are in short supply - a problem that's magnified in city schools that draw the majority of black and Hispanic students, who did far worse on the NAEP test than white students.

Solutions? Restructuring of schools to allow smaller classes. Reordering the school day to give teachers more time with students. Making tutoring in math more available to kids who need it. Major efforts by states to recruit and retain well-qualified math teachers.

That's hardly an exhaustive list, but it does suggest that effective reform will have to reach more deeply.