Annual report: Student progress has “plateaued”

Iowa students showed slight gains in math, reading and science last year, but the overall picture is stagnant.

“I think the reality is that when you go back and look at the early 2000s, when No Child Left Behind first came into play, we did see some substantial jumps,” said Kevin Fangman, acting director of the Iowa Department of Education. “I think the last three biennium or two-year periods, it looks like we are just maintaining and we are kind of plateauing out.”

According to the 2010 Condition of Education report, the state saw slight gains in reading among Iowa's fourth, eighth and 11

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grade students overall, as measured by standardized test scores. The state's fourth grade scores increased .3 percent from 2007-2009 to 2008-10. Iowa's eighth graders saw a one-point increase and its 11

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graders a .5 increase during the same period.

The greatest increase was among the state's eighth grade Hispanic students. This group jumped from 49.1 percent in 2007-09 to 54.1 percent in 2008-10, continuing the state's trend of narrowing the “achievement gap” between the Iowa's minority and white students. Hispanic students also are improving in math, according to the data for 11

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grade students.

Iowa's African American students continue to fall behind as other minority groups close the achievement gap.

This population saw a slight gain in eighth grade reading comprehension, which increased 1.1 percent from 2007-09 to 2008-10, but fourth and 11

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grade scores decreased slightly.

“I do think we have plateaued,” Fangman said. “I think we have some spots where we are making progress but it's not enough to raise our achievement up to where it needs to be.”

The State Board of Education approved the adoption of Common Core State Standards in July. Fangman said the new standards and core curriculum requirements will raise expectation and make them consistent all around the state.

“Education must look forward. We do so in good times and bad. Iowa, like the entire nation, has faced historic economic challenges in recent years. But even in times of tight budgets and spending cuts, we have worked to preserve our historic support of education,” Fangman said. “But we must also take a moment and look back to evaluate how Iowa's education system is serving all of its students. For more than 20 years the Condition of Education Report has helped meet that goal, providing valuable information on everything from enrollment to student performance, from our teachers to finances to our demographics.”

According to the numbers, Iowa's minority population continues to increase, while the state's overall student enrollment numbers fell for the twelfth consecutive year.

There were 507,662 students enrolled in the state's 361 public and 182 non-public schools during the 2009-10 school year. The total was 510,916 students the year before.

In the 2008-09 school year, there were more than 75,000 minority students enrolled in the state's schools, an increase of more than 75 percent in the last decade. Last year, there were more than 85,000 minority students, accounting for 17.1 percent of the student body.

Also increasing is the number of students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, with 28.8 percent of the state's students qualifying for free meals and 8.2 percent qualifying for reduced lunches last year. Iowa's largest districts report the highest percentage of students eligible for free meals.

“Just from 2008-09 to 2009-10, we have 5 percent more of our kids on free or reduced lunch, living in poverty,” Fangman said. “That amount has gone up almost double from the year 2000.”

The Cedar Rapids school district's free and reduced-price lunch average is 44.5 percent – an increase from 27.6 percent 10 years earlier.

“We are continuing to become poor, according to our free and reduced-price lunches,” Superintendent Dave Benson said.

Statistically, one out of every two students in the Cedar Rapids district qualifies as poor. About 700 of its students qualify as homeless under the federal definition.

By the numbers

87.3 Percentage of Iowa districts that offer preschool, up substantially from the 43.2 percent that offered it in 1998.

21,278 Number of English Language Learner students in Iowa, more than double the number reported 10 years earlier.

361 Number of school districts in Iowa, down from 377 in 1997-98.

$8,484 Average state spending per pupil in 2008-09. Iowa ranks 34

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in the nation.

42.2 Average age of Iowa's public school teachers.

27.7 Average age of beginning full-time public school teachers.

$48,638 Average teacher salary. Iowa ranks 26

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in the nation.

$85,913 Average principal salary.

$115,373 Average superintendent salary.

Source: Iowa Department of Education