New Jersey Still Outperforms Most on
National Reading Test, But Progress is Flat

New Jersey students continued to score at the top of national rankings of students in the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test, but the tests showed that scores have not improved appreciably. The NAEP, often called “The Nation’s Report Card,” is one of the few tests with data that allows state-by-state comparisons to be made.

In the reading test, New Jersey’s fourth grade students were tied for second in the country, along with Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont; Massachusetts ranked first. In the eighth grade test, Garden State students were ranked second, after Massachusetts.

Scores Flat Since 2007 However, in New Jersey, as was the case nationally, reading scores were flat. The state’s score on the fourth grade test dropped slightly, by two points, from the 2007 test, while the eighth grade score rose by three points. The NAEP judged both to be statistically insignificant.

Achievement Gap Persists The tests also showed that the achievement gap, or the difference in academic performance between minority and low income children and their classmates, persists.

Among fourth grade students, black students had an average score that was 25 points lower than white children. This performance gap is narrower than 1992’s 35 point difference, but still significant. Hispanic children of that age had an average score of 24 points lower than their white counterparts; that gap narrowed from 38 points in 1992.

In 2009, black grade-eight students had an average score that was 31 points lower and Hispanic students’ average score was 25 points lower than that of white students. In both cases, the performance gap was not significantly different than it was in 2003.

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