NEBRASKA /A.P. NEWS
FIRST STATE READING SCORES UNDER NEW SYSTEM RELEASED
By John Axtell
Aug 26, 2010 - 2:41:25 PM

     The annual Nebraska State Assessment Reading Report for students throughout the state was released yesterday. Statewide, 68.6% of students met or exceeded the state's reading standards.

     While that's well below the scores of past years, this is the first the numbers have been for a single statewide test offered in the same time period and in the same format.

     Nebraska Education Commissioner Roger Breed says the differences are so great, comparisons with past scores are meaningless...with this year's scores the new baseline for evaluating student skills and the state's schools.

    Breed says consistent and incremental improvement was seen year after year under the old system, and he expects to see the new system to also show higher and higher percentages of students meeting and exceeding the new state standards in the future.

    147,337 public school students in grades 3 through 8th and high school juniors took the reading test in March and April...the first time all schools used the same grade-appropriate test.

       There was just over a 3-percentage point difference between the highest and lowest scoring grades. 7th graders led the way with 70.4% meeting or exceeding the state standards while 5th graders were the lowest at 67.2%.

     For the other grades, the percentage of those meeting or exceeding the standards were 67.5% for 3rd graders, 4th grade 69.5%, 6th grade 68.2, and 7th grade 69%.

      Results for each district and each school in the state are available from the Nebraska Department of Education website at www.education.ne.gov

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