Academic achievement gaps remain "perplexing and persistent" according to a recent New York Times survey. But New Jersey is one of the few states that has made even "moderate gains," in part because of the Abbott mandates.

The lead story in the Nov. 28 NYT surveyed several recent studies on the national goal of closing achievement gaps between students from different social and racial backgrounds. Overall, it found "little progress toward that goal...Despite concerted efforts by educators, the test-score gaps are so large that, on average, African-American and Hispanic students in high school can read and do arithmetic at only the average level of whites in junior high school."

NJ was one of only eight states identified in the Times report where some progress was being made. These signs of progress include:

• • Improving scores for African-American and Hispanic students on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) in fourth-grade and eighth-grade reading and math.
• • The nation’s highest high school graduation rates for African American and Hispanic students.
• • Dramatic gains on state tests by fourth graders which from 2000-01 to 2004-05 reduced test score gaps between urban and suburban students by about half. This timeframe corresponds to the expanded implementation of Abbott reforms including high quality early childhood programs, smaller class sizes, intensive early literacy efforts, and per pupil parity spending for urban districts.

Major gaps remain, of course. While trends on NAEP assessments are hopeful, large differences remain among overall NAEP scores for white, black, Hispanic and low income students. On NJ state tests, middle and high school scores have yet to show the same gains as elementary ones.

"These enormous and persistent gaps will require many years of targeted and sustained investment to close," wrote Michael Nettles, a senior vice president of the Educational Testing Service in one of the reports cited by the Times survey. Nettles noted that closing achievement gaps had only recently become the explicit focus of federal and state policy. An earlier ETS study, Parsing the Achievement Gap, found that closing academic gaps will require broad-based efforts to address both the social and educational dimensions of the problem. The study tracked 14 contributing factors from birth weight and child nutrition to class size and teacher qualifications, and concluded, "The results are unambiguous. In all 14 factors, the gaps in student achievement mirror inequalities in those aspects of school, early life, and home circumstances that research has linked to achievement."

Sustaining a commitment to closing achievement gaps will mean combining effective social supports with effective school improvement efforts, like NJ’s Abbott reforms. Together, the evidence shows they can make a difference.

Prepared: December 1, 2006

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