Iowa can’t stand still

The Gazette Editorial Board

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Reinforcement of the call for education reform in Iowa arrived Monday: the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. The report backs up what some political and education leaders have been telling us: Iowa has slipped to the middle of the pack in student achievement in two basic measures vital to success: reading and math.

What's more, while the nation as a whole is trending up, Iowa scores for students in grades 4 and 8 are essentially flat over the period from 2003 to 2011. While Iowa students aren't doing worse and still are slightly better than the national average, we're on the verge of being passed.

The NAEP report (www.edtrust.org, click on Press Room, then Press Releases), while certainly not the defining measure of all student achievement, is an evidence-based reminder that Iowa's education system can't stand still.

The NAEP is the largest continuing measure of student progress and the only one that compares states. It uses the same standards for everyone. And it employs a tougher measure of student proficiency than the one Iowa uses to meet the federal No Child Left Behind requirements. NAEP's testing ranks about half as many Iowa students as proficient compared to the state's test standards.

Iowa fares a bit better in the so-called achievement gap, where the state's numbers comparing African American, Latino and low-income students to white and higher-income peers are several points better than the national average. Yet the double-digit gaps are certainly not acceptable.

So, there's work to do. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad's blueprint draft for reform, which is debated around the state, will be on legislators' plates when the 2012 session convenes in January. True systemic reform is a daunting task but it's one we cannot ignore if we want our students adequately prepared to compete in the national and global higher-education and employment arenas.

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