‘More to do’: Miami-Dade students dip in reading, math in post-pandemic assessment
In the first authoritative look at student achievement since the pandemic’s onset, Miami-Dade County fourth- and eighth-graders’ test scores showed declines, particularly in math, with even lower scores for Black and Hispanic students.
The school district’s results, released Monday from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, revealed that fourth-graders scored, on average, 5 points lower in math than they did in 2019, while eighth-graders reported a 2-point drop.
In reading, fourth-graders, on average, saw a 1-point decline from 2019; eighth-graders, meanwhile, saw no decline in the average score.
Despite the dips, Miami-Dade Superintendent Jose Dotres in a news conference Monday touted the district’s “uplifting and validating results.”
“While other school districts across the nation lost significant academic ground, we were able to stay very steady and exceed the majority of these large urban school districts,” he said. In each of the four areas tested — fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math — Miami-Dade Schools outperformed at least 20 other large urban districts, the report shows.
NAEP, commonly referred to as the nation’s report card, measures fourth- and eighth-graders’ proficiency in math and reading to understand student performance on a national level over time. This year’s results are based on tests administered between January and March 2022, two years into the pandemic. The previous tests were taken in 2019.
Nationally, the average fourth-grade math score decreased by 5 points. The average eighth-grade math score decreased by 8 points compared to 2019. No state or large urban district — which includes Miami-Dade County — recorded any improvements in the subject, and according to the report, “the national average score declines in mathematics for fourth- and eighth-graders were the largest ever recorded in that subject.”
In reading, national average scores for fourth- and eighth-grade students decreased by 3 points.
The Broward County school district was not one of the 26 highlighted districts in the report.
The national results are “another reminder that the pandemic has had major impacts on our children,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said. “Today’s results show that children who were already furthest from opportunity before March 2020 and who were most impacted by COVID need the greatest support now to make up for lost ground in reading and math.”
“Let me be very clear: these results are not acceptable,” Cardona said in a statement.
Majority of students not at proficiency levels
Though Miami-Dade’s scores mirror national trends, the results underscore low proficiency rates among students within the district.
About 40% of Miami-Dade’s fourth-graders scored proficient in math, down from 47% in 2019. In eighth grade, just 24% scored proficient in math, down from 27%, which is not a statistically significant change, according to the report.
In reading, 39% of fourth-graders were proficient, up from 38% in 2019, while 31% of eighth-graders were proficient this year, down from 32% in 2019. Changes in reading, however, were deemed statistically insignificant, according to the report.
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The proficiency rates — where a majority of fourth- and eighth-grade students are not up to grade level in math and reading — are an area officials “must attend to” and that must be improved, Dotres said.
Indeed, the district and NEAP have different measurements for proficiency. NEAP divides student achievement into four categories: below, basic, proficient and advanced. When the district discusses proficiency, however, it includes scores of students who performed at or above basic. Thus, the district’s reported proficiency rates are higher. (For fourth-grade math scores, for example, the percentage of students who performed at or above the basic level was 82 percent in 2022, according to the district.)
Big gaps between Black and Hispanics, white students
Black and Hispanic students in Miami-Dade achieved higher scores in all four test areas than the national average and other large school district samples, the test results show, but learning gaps among students in these two groups remain a concern for district officials.
In fourth-grade reading, Black students scored, on average, 37 points lower than white students, while Hispanic students scored 18 points lower. In eighth-grade reading, Black students scored 29 points lower, on average, compared to white students; Hispanic students’ score was an average of 23 points lower, the report shows.
Math scores revealed a similar trend: Black students scored, on average, 32 points lower than white students in fourth-grade math; the scores for Hispanic students were 15 points lower. In eighth-grade math, Black students’ score was an average of 27 points lower than that of white students; Hispanic students’ average score was 16 points lower.
When asked about the measures the district is taking to close the gap, Dotres pointed to the district’s Achievement Gap Taskforce and recent work among School Board members to identify specific metrics for each subgroup to provide targeted remedies and support programs, but didn’t provide specifics.
No correlation to school closures
This year’s results come after a pandemic that disrupted students’ learning and how teachers taught — factors officials say play into student outcomes.
Remote learning, especially with math, officials said, “proved to be a difficult medium for teachers to provide students with timely and specific feedback.” To offset those losses, the district has been using federal funds to offer reading and math coaches and additional tutoring.
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Despite the setbacks caused by the pandemic and remote learning, though, officials cautioned against drawing a direct correlation between school closures and NAEP scores. Peggy Carr, National Center for Education Statistics commissioner, said there is nothing in the data to suggest the results are “solely, primarily attributable to differences in how long students stayed in remote learning.”
Dotres also avoided drawing correlations. Instead, he attributed Miami-Dade’s results to “years of continuous improvement,” which enabled officials and teachers to bring students back quickly and offer them the supports needed to recover any learning losses. (Gov. Ron DeSantis in a statement said the results reaffirmed the decision to open schools in 2020 and 2021.)
Still, Dotres said, officials “definitely have to do more.”
“We are focusing on proficiency levels and continuing to narrow the achievement gap,” he said. “However, we have to celebrate the fact that when you look at the results, our district did not lose ground, did not experience those academic losses that you see across school districts when you look at (these) results.”
This story was originally published October 24, 2022 at 5:57 PM.
