Articles

NAEP Report Shows Improvements
for 9-Year-Olds

Public Agenda Alert
July 14, 2005

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as "the nation's report card," was released today and found 9-year-olds earned their highest scores in both reading and math since the tests were first given in the early 1970s. There were smaller gains by 13-year-olds, but the performance of 17-year-olds remained flat. The report also shows that achievement gaps between white students and black and Hispanic students remain, but have narrowed.

Surveys find confidence in public schools has declined since the 1970s, and seven in 10 Americans say they favor strict standards for public schools. Responses to whether minorities and whites receive an equal education vary depending on how the question is worded. But majorities of parents also say they don't know how their child compares academically to other students in the U.S. and elsewhere.

"Where We Are Now," a digest of a decade of Public Agenda opinion research on education, found that the standards movement is in full sway in American schools, and support for higher standards and accountability remains solid among teachers, parents and students. But beneath the surface, teachers are discouraged, administrators are besieged by politics and many teachers and students worry about an unruly, disrespectful and sometimes violent atmosphere in American high schools.

Download a free copy of "Where We Are Now": http://www.publicagenda.org/research
/research_reports_details.cfm?list=11

Find out more in our issue guide on Education:
http://www.publicagenda.org/issues
/frontdoor.cfm?issue_type=education

Get the NAEP results:
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ltt/results2004/

Read the Associated Press story:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/07/
14/math.reading.scores.ap/index.html

About Public Agenda

Public Agenda is a nonpartisan opinion research organization helping Americans explore and understand critical issues since 1975. For more information about Public Agenda, visit http://www.publicagenda.org.

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