Harvard Study: Arkansas Ninth In Student Achievement Gains

Arkansas ranked ninth out of 41 states in student achievement gains from 1992 until 2010, according to a new report by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance and the journal Education Next.

The July 2012 report, “Achievement Growth: International and U.S. State Trends in Student Performance” by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government, examined assessments of fourth-and eighth-graders in math, science and reading. It used as its basis one national test and three international ones, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Programme for International Student Assessment. Test scores of American students assessed between 1995 and 2009 were compared to those in 48 developed and developing countries.

Maryland showed the most gains, followed by Florida, Delaware, Massachusetts, Louisiana, South Carolina, New Jersey, Kentucky, Arkansas and Virginia. Iowa ranked last, just below, from worst to less worse, Maine, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Nebraska.  Nine states were excluded because they had not participated in early NAEP tests.

While Arkansas fared well in the report compared to other states, the country as a whole continues to struggle against its international competition. The United States ranked exactly in the middle – doing better than 24 countries and worse than the other 24, with much of that standing attributable to gains made by fourth-graders. While gains in the United States represented about a year’s worth of learning, the best 11-performing countries saw an improvement of about two years.

“Had all students throughout the country made the same average gains as those in the four leading states, the United States would have been making progress roughly comparable to the rate of improvement in Germany and the United Kingdom, bringing the United States reasonably close to the top-performing countries in the world,” the report said.

The report did not blame apathy or inaction for the United States’ mediocre performance. Governments at all levels spent 35 percent more per student in real dollars in 2009 than they did in 1990.

“Nor is the public unaware of the situation,” the report said. “When a cross section of the American public was asked how well the United States was doing in math, as compared to other industrialized countries, the average estimate placed the United States at the 18th rank, only modestly better than its actual standing.”

The researchers noted that five of the top 10 states with the most growth were located in the South, while none of the slowest-growing 18 were. Part of that could be explained by the fact that some Southern states were behind the rest of the nation and therefore had an easier time showing improvements.

However, the report said, “The strong showing of the South may be related to energetic political efforts to enhance school quality in that region. During the 1990s, governors of several southern states – Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas – provided much of the national leadership for the school accountability effort, as there was a widespread sentiment in the wake of the civil rights movement that steps had to be taken to equalize educational opportunity across racial groups. The results of our study suggest those efforts were at least partially successful.”

The study’s authors are Eric Hanushek, senior fellow of the Hoover Institution of Stanford University; Paul Peterson, director of the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance; and Ludger Woessmann of the University of Munich.