Students are doing better on state reading and math tests nationally since the No Child Left Behind Act became law five years ago, according to a report released yesterday.

Students made the most progress on elementary school math tests, according to the report by the Center on Education Policy, a national nonprofit policy group.

In Hawai'i, math test scores showed slight gains at elementary and middle school levels, but not in high school, and there were no consistent trends in reading, the center found.

Hawai'i's third-graders improved the most on math and reading proficiency tests but left plenty of room for improvement.

Fifty percent of third-graders scored proficient in reading in 2006, up from 43 percent in 2002, the study found. And 30 percent were proficient in math, up from 20 percent.

Math proficiency among Hawai'i's 10th-graders remained dismal, and even registered a slight decline.

Just 18 percent of the state's 10th-graders scored proficient in math in 2006, down from 19 percent in 2002.

State Department of Education spokesman Greg Knudsen said the report does not appear to contain any surprising new information regarding the state.

"We certainly have acknowledged that we're not where we should be, and we certainly are striving for improvement and looking for improvement at all levels," Knudsen said.

He stressed that the state's tests have been recognized as very difficult and rigorous, compared to those in some other states where students may appear to be doing better.

"The higher the bar is set, the more difficult it is to reach that level," he said.

And it's not clear that any gains made here since 2002 are the result of No Child Left Behind, Knudsen said.

"If you're going to ask if student achievement has increased because of NCLB, it's also fair to ask whether achievement has increased in spite of NCLB," he said.

The program imposes expenses that are not fully funded, along with "unrealistic goals of 100 percent proficiency, and the toll it takes may be a serious toll," he said.

COMPARISONS DIFFICULT

The report focused on states where trend data are available. Some states have changed tests in recent years, making it impossible to compare year-to-year results.

Moderate to large gains were found in 37 of the 41 states with trend data on the percentage of kids hitting the proficient mark on elementary school math tests. None of the states showed comparable declines.

A goal of the No Child Left Behind law is for all kids to be proficient in reading and math, or working at grade level, by 2014.

Another goal is to narrow achievement gaps between children from low-income families and wealthier ones, and between minority and white students. The new report found achievement gaps have narrowed since the law was passed.

Specifically, the study found in 14 of 38 states with relevant trend data, gaps narrowed on the reading tests between black and white students at the elementary and secondary levels. No state reported a comparable widening of the gap.

In math, a dozen states showed a narrowing of the racial achievement gap at the elementary and secondary grade levels. Only Washington state showed a widening of that gap.

Results were generally similar for Hispanic and low-income groups, according to the report.

Just 13 states had enough data to examine whether the pace at which students improved has quickened since No Child Left Behind was enacted.

In nine of those states, students improved at a greater rate after 2002 than before: Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wyoming.

In the other four states — Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon and Virginia — gains were greater before 2002 than afterward. One possible explanation is that more students, such as those with disabilities or immigrants, were included in NCLB-era tests but not in the earlier ones, according to the researchers.

INTERPRETATIONS DIFFER

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the study shows No Child Left Behind is working, but the report itself doesn't assign credit to the law for the improvements made. It states that other state and local initiatives that may deserve some of the credit have taken place during the same period.

"You can't tease out the effects of any one of the reform efforts, because they all overlap on one another," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy.

Ross Wiener, vice president for program and policy at Education Trust, a group that advocates for poor and minority children, said he saw good news in the study. "Those trends are encouraging. There's something to celebrate that's going on in our schools," he said.

The rigor of tests varies from state to state, according to Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California-Berkeley.

He said states generally set the proficiency bar low, since schools face tough consequences — such as having to fire teachers or administrators — if their students do poorly on the tests.

But Jennings said California, Massachusetts and Florida are examples of states with high standards.

Jennings and Fuller agreed that some of the gains may reflect what teachers are focusing on in their classrooms.

"The teachers teach to the test, and that's a rational response by classroom teachers under pressure to raise scores," Fuller said.