State Is on the Right Track to Boost Grades, Group Says

States could erase large achievement gaps if they emulated other states that have succeeded in lifting the performance of poor and minority students, according to a new analysis of national test data by the nonprofit Education Trust.

Among the “frontier states” that have narrowed those gaps are Texas, Connecticut and Virginia, the trust said. Connecticut has focused for more than a decade on improving teacher quality. Texas and Virginia, meanwhile, have embraced standards, testing and accountability.

For the first time, said policy analyst Craig Jerald, the trust is seeing poor and minority students performing better in some cases than whites. The results, he added, indicate that “gaps can be closed in a much shorter time than we thought.”

California, he said, is on the right track with high standards and its new accountability program. It must focus on whittling away at its teacher quality problem, he said.

The Education Trust surveyed fourth- and eighth-grade data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The results are available on the Web at https://204.176.179.36/dc/edtrust/edstart.cfm.