Students Lag in High-Tech Achievement : Education: Two panels cite some improvements in math and science abilities. Secretary Alexander still sees ‘shocking gap’ in training for ‘90s.

American schoolchildren made progress in mastering basic skills in the 1980s after losing ground in the 1970s but they still lag in achievement if the country is to compete successfully in the high-tech era, three reports suggested Monday.

The first report, a 20-year review of test results from the congressionally mandated National Assessment Governing Board, suggested that the educational reform efforts of the 1980s may have begun to pay off, particularly in math and science. But a second report by the group found that fewer than 20% of American students are “proficient” in math--able to handle challenging material--and one-third do not even master math basics.

Separately, a third report by the National Education Goals Panel--a reform group organized two years ago by the President and the nation’s governors--rated progress toward six key educational goals and concluded that it “falls far short of what is needed to secure a free and prosperous future.” The panel’s report compiled existing information on adult literacy rates, basic-skills mastery, preschool care, high school graduation rates and drug abuse to try to establish a base line for judging progress in the years ahead.

For example, the goals panel found that 83% of all 19- and 20-year-olds finished high school or its equivalent in 1990. That rate is 7 percentage points below the national goal of a 90% completion rate.

The California graduation rate of 79.9% fell short of the national average, but Orange County exceeded it with 84.2% completing high school in 1990, according to the state Department of Education.

U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, summarizing the reports, said that American schoolchildren now know about as much math, science, reading and writing as their parents did at the same age two decades ago. But, “what we did in the 1970s is not nearly good enough for the 1990s,” he said. “It’s a shocking gap.”

Comparable county-by-county statistics were unavailable. But Maureen DiMarco, California’s secretary for child development and education and a trustee in the Garden Grove Unified School District, noted that Orange County students and schools generally perform better than the national and state averages, despite increasingly overcrowded schools and ever more children whose first language is not English.

“In general, Orange County will look better than the national and state trends, but it won’t look as good as the county should look,” said DiMarco. “That’s because the reality for Orange County is the same as everywhere else: We are being impacted more and more by poverty, drugs, disease, neglect and abuse. And those are trends that have to be dealt with.”

The first report by the National Assessment Governing Board analyzed results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a 20-year-old congressionally mandated educational survey. It found that average science scores in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades had improved through the 1980s and are now roughly where they were in 1970.

On a 500-point scale, the average science score for eighth-graders was 255 in 1969, dipped to 250 in 1982 and recovered to 255 last year.

In math, average scores in all three grades were “significantly higher” in 1990 than in 1978. But in writing, average scores were unchanged or lower; in reading, proficiency rose among 12th-graders in the past six years, but was unchanged in the two other grades.

Carl J. Moser, a member of the assessment board, said that the math and science results “give hope for the future. It shows that our schools can improve.” He said that the gains had taken place in all parts of the country but that the largest gains “have been for those who were farthest behind--black students and those in the Southeast.”

The study showed, for example, that the average reading proficiency score of black 12th-graders rose, on a 500-point scale, from 239 in 1970 to 274 in 1988. However, reading test results for black students have tapered off slightly in all three grades since then.

Bill Honig, California’s superintendent of public instruction, said that the report’s presentation of test data masked the full extent of performance gains. He said that between 1982 and 1990 the percentage of 9-year-olds who reached the 250-point mark in math rose from 19% to 28%--a 47% increase in the size of that group.

The National Assessment Governing Board’s second report was an effort to go beyond an assessment of what schoolchildren know, to evaluate what they should know. This report found that 63% of fourth-graders, 62% of eighth-graders and 64% of 12th-graders had a “basic” mastery of math fundamentals.

Only 15% of fourth-graders, 18% of eighth-graders and 16% of 12th-graders were “proficient”--competent to handle challenging material. And only 0.6% of fourth-graders, 1% of eighth-graders and 2.6% of 12th-graders had “advanced” skills.

In a separate section the report compared performance among the states, drawing on a different set of test results.

Among California eighth-graders, 51% were classified at the “basic” level, compared to 58% for the nation. About 14% were “proficient,” compared to 15.5% nationally; and 0.7% were “advanced,” versus 0.2% nationally. But the statistical margin of error was large enough in the latter two categories that California eighth-graders should be considered at the national average, according to the test.

The levels were set in consultation with 250 teachers.

The standard immediately drew fire. Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that the numbers were “designed to portray the overwhelming majority of our students as mathematical illiterates” and are “technically indefensible and grossly misleading.”

Nonetheless, DiMarco applauded the panel’s overall goals of literacy, safe schools, increasing high school graduation rates nationally to 90%, proficiency in subject areas such as mathematics, and improving the readiness of preschool youngsters to learn.

“Who could disagree with the national goals?” she asked. “They’re very appropriate. What I’m looking for is a greater recognition that a coordinated effort is needed to make significant strides on these issues.

“But you can’t just tell me to climb Mt. Everest. It’s going to take money; it’s going to take new money and reordering our priorities on old money; and it’s going to take energy and time.”