SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today made the following comments about results on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP):

"The NAEP scores released today are not surprising and they are another indication of the challenges we face in California public schools and the hard work we must do to meet those challenges. While California's overall performance tracks closely with nationwide trends, and there are valid reasons to question the fairness of state-to-state comparisons, it is clear that California schools must do more to improve student achievement.

"When considering the NAEP scores, it is important to remember some significant differences between NAEP and our state assessments, and also to take a close look at California's demographics and the performance gains of specific student groups.

"Unlike our statewide assessments, NAEP is not aligned to the content taught in California's classrooms and, therefore, is not as sensitive to changes in student achievement as our California Standards Tests. Unlike the California STAR assessments, average scale scores and other results from NAEP contain sampling error, so it takes a greater increase in achievement to register as significant on NAEP. Results on our statewide tests, which are aligned to our rigorous standards, indicate that a focus on high expectations is leading to steady gains in student achievement.

"There is some positive news in the results. For example, California Hispanic students who are not English learners have made significant gains in reading and math, and the gap between those students and white students has narrowed. Score gaps among black and white students and economically disadvantaged students have also narrowed, even as the proportion of economically disadvantaged students has steadily increased.

"California's poor showing relative to other states in reading is at least in part due to the fact that California has the highest proportion of English learners in the nation and also that we assessed a higher proportion of our English learner students than any other state. While California excluded 12 percent of its English learner students from the 2005 NAEP reading assessment,  Texas' exclusion rate, for example, was 37.5 percent, and New York's, 29 percent.

"California policymakers believe it is important to test all students regardless of their challenges, and we have stuck to high standards and expectations for all students. The result is that our state doesn't fare as well as we'd like on some national comparisons, but our students are better served if we hold high standards and gather more complete data. If we continue to focus on California's rigorous standards in the classroom we can expect the achievement gains seen on our state tests to be reflected on the next NAEP assessments."

For more information on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) please go to: The Nation's Report Card - National Assessment of Educational Progress - NAEP [http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/] (Outside Source).