U.S. test scores languish, and federal and state experts cite Common Core shift

The U.S. got its grade school report card on Wednesday, and it wasn't great. The 2015 Nation's Report Card, or National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), was especially bad when it came to math, recording the first decline in national math scores of fourth and eighth graders since 1990. In the 2015 tests, 40 percent of fourth graders were deemed proficient in math, down 2 percentage points since 2013, as were 33 percent of eighth graders, also down 2 points. On reading, fourth grade scores were essentially flat, at 36 percent proficiency or higher, while average eighth grade scores fell 2 points, to 34 percent.

State and federal education officials urged parents and teachers not to panic. Their explanations ranged from statistical anomaly to decreasing family income among grade schoolers to the changing racial demographics to the growing number of tests — a point President Obama made on Saturday. The mushrooming of state and federal tests may be leading to test fatigue or parents opting out of tests on behalf of their offspring. "If I was a student, it would be hard to know which ones to take seriously," said Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. "I know at that point we were all talking about opting out and lots of different things were going on."

A lot of experts also cited the transition to Common Core educational standards, which change how students learn math and when they learn it. "We should expect scores in this period to bounce around some, and I think that 'implementation dip' is part of what we're seeing here," said outgoing Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "I would caution everyone to be careful about drawing conclusions." Under Common Core, some students aren't being taught things that appear on the NAEP test until a later grade, according to a study released Monday. "Knowing other kinds of math isn't going to help you unless you've been taught it," said Fran Stancavage, an author of that study.

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