By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The results of a national student reading test showed Thursday that New York City’s fourth graders have shown steady improvement since 2002, when Mayor Bloomberg took control of city schools, but eighth graders are reading at more or less the same level.
The numbers, which come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, show that the city’s fourth graders are getting closer to reaching the national and state averages for reading ability. However, a notably higher percentage of eighth graders in the city are reading below a basic level than their peers across the state and country.
Despite the figures about eighth graders’ reading skills falling behind, Mayor Michael Bloomberg viewed the overall data as positive.
“It’s very clear that our public school students are continuing to close the gap with students in the rest of the State and the country,” the mayor said in a statement.
“That is enormously important — and it reverses decades of poor performance in City schools compared with schools in the suburbs."
"We’re catching up to them because we’re creating schools that are as good as any in the country."
But United Federation of Teachers’ President Michael Mulgrew was not as overwhelmed by the test scores.
“The good news of the NAEP scores is in the improvement in fourth grade, and teachers and administrators should be congratulated for that achievement,” Mulgrew said. “The bad news is that eighth grade scores have only recovered to the level they were six years ago.”
The assessments found 29 percent of New York City’s fourth graders are proficient readers, and 62 percent are above basic, a performance that is below the national average, but better than many other school systems in large cities.
New York also saw a higher raise in reading scores in black and lower-income fourth grade students since 2002 than those in other major cities. The city’s Asian, white or Hispanic students at the same grade level did not see significant increases in test scores from 2002 to 2009, according to the report.
