NATION
Thursday, October 29, 2015
East Oregonian
Page 7A
Math, reading scores slip for nation’s kids
By JENNIFER C. KERR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
Results from national math
and reading tests show
slipping or stagnant scores
for the nation’s schoolkids.
Math scores were down
for fourth and eighth graders
over the last two years. And
reading grades were not
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graders and lower for eighth
graders, according to 2015
results released Wednesday
for the National Assessment
of Educational Progress
(NAEP) exam.
The falling mathematics
scores for fourth and eighth
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declines in math since 1990.
The results suggest
students have a ways to go
to demonstrate a solid grasp
or mastery in reading and
math.
Only about a third of
the nation’s eighth-graders
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in math and reading. Among
fourth graders, the results
were slightly better in
reading and in math, about
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or above.
The report also found a
continuing achievement gap
between white and black
students.
There were a few
bright spots: the District of
Columbia and Mississippi
both saw substantial reading
and math gains.
Education
Secretary
Arne Duncan urged parents,
teachers, and others not
to panic about the scores
as states embrace higher
academic standards, such as
Common Core.
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of eighth-grade students
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PORTLAND (AP) — Oregon fourth- and eighth-
reading, a two-point drop.
graders performed about as well as they did two years ago
Both measures were sharply
on a national math and reading test, even as nationwide
higher than 1990 results.
scores dipped, according to results of the National
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Assessment of Education Progress released Wednesday.
grade
students were at or
On math and fourth-grade reading, Oregon students
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performed about as well as their peers nationally.
this
year.
That’s down two
On eighth-grade reading, Oregon’s scores were above
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the national average. Only four states had scores in that
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category that were statistically higher than Oregon’s.
that measure since 1990.
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percent of students were
Thirty-four percent of Oregon students scored at or
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also a two-point decline.
performed at or above the “basic” level. Oregon’s average
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scores were higher in the
states, higher than scores in eight states and lower than 20.
District of Columbia and
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Mississippi — up three
their Hispanic and American Indian peers. Scores for
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Hispanic students were 25 points lower than white
scores dropped. They were
students’ scores. Scores for black students were not
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reported.
grade math, there were no
gains across the states, and
“We should expect scores administration. They spell 22 states had lower scores
in this period to bounce out what students should WKDQLQ
around some, and I think know in English and math
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that ‘implementation dip’ is at each grade level, with a were higher for fourth-
part of what we’re seeing focus on critical thinking JUDGHUV LQ VWDWHV DQG
here,” Duncan said in a and less of an emphasis on jurisdictions, including the
phone call with reporters. memorization. But they District of Columbia — up
“I would caution everyone have become a rallying seven points. Mississippi
to be careful about drawing point for critics who want and Louisiana were also
a smaller federal role in higher, both states up six
conclusions.”
Chris Minnich, executive education and some parents points. At the eighth-grade
director of the Council of confounded by some of the level, reading improved
&KLHI6WDWH6FKRRO2I¿FHUV new concepts being taught.
only in West Virginia, up
The NAEP tests, also three points.
echoed Duncan.
“One year does not known as the “nation’s
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make a trend,” Minnich report card,” don’t align VLJQL¿FDQW FKDQJHV LQ WKH
said at a panel discussion completely with Common achievement gap for reading
Wednesday. “We set this &RUH EXW 1$(3 RI¿FLDOV between white students and
new goal for the country of said there was “quite a bit” their black and Hispanic
college and career readiness of overlap between the peers. But for math, there
for all kids. Clearly, these tests and the college-ready was a small narrowing in the
results today show we’re not standards.
gap between white fourth
quite there yet and we have
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graders and their black
some work to do.”
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The Common Core stan- graders were at or above ZKLWHVWXGHQWVZDVSRLQWV
dards were developed by the WKH SUR¿FLHQW OHYHO LQ higher, slightly smaller than
states with the support of the reading, about the same WKHSRLQWJDSLQ
Oregon scores unchanged on test
Insurgents vs mainstream:
Debate highlights GOP’s 2 tracks
By JULIE PACE
and THOMAS BEAUMONT
Associated Press
BOULDER, Colo. — Jeb Bush
and Marco Rubio fought for control
of the Republican’s establishment
wing in Wednesday night’s third GOP
debate, as insurgent outsiders Donald
Trump and Ben Carson defended the
seriousness of their White House bids,
underscoring the volatile two-track
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nation.
But in an economic policy-focused
debate, Trump and Carson at times
faded to the background during the
two-hour contest.
Bush, once seen as the top Repub-
lican contender, entered the debate
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stretch of his White House campaign.
He quickly targeted Rubio for his
spotty voting record on Capitol Hill,
signaling that he sees the Florida
senator as the candidate most likely to
block his political path.
“Marco, when you signed up for
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should be showing up for work,”
said Bush, who is struggling to right
his campaign after being forced to
slash spending in response to slower
fundraising. “You can campaign, or
just resign and let someone else take
the job.”
Rubio, who has had a close
relationship with Bush, responded
sharply: “The only reason you’re
doing it is that we’re running for
the same position and someone has
convinced you that attacking me will
help you.”
Three months before primary
voting begins, the Republican contest
remains crowded and unwieldly. Yet
the contours of the race have been
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on voter frustration with Washington
and candidates with political experi-
ence hoping the race ultimately turns
their way.
Trump, the brash real estate mogul,
has dominated the Republican race
for months, but was a less of a factor
Wednesday night than in the previous
two debates. He largely refrained from
personal attacks on his rivals, which
has been a signature of his campaign,
even taking a light touch with Carson,
who has overtaken him in recent Iowa
polls.
Carson, the soft-spoken retired
neurosurgeon who came into the
debate with a burst of momentum,
stuck to his low-key style. He sought
to explain his vague tax policy, which
he has compared to tithing, in which
families donate the same portion of
their income to their church regardless
of how much they make.
And he insisted he had no
involvement with supplement maker
Mannatech, although he acknowl-
edged using its product and giving
paid speeches for the company, which
has faced a legal challenge over health
AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
Donald Trump, second from right, speaks, as Jeb Bush, left, Marco
Rubio, second from left, and Ben Carson look on during the CNBC Re-
publican presidential debate at the University of Colorado, Wednesday.
“We are on the verge of perhaps picking
someone who cannot do this job.”
— Ohio Gov. John Kasich,
On unorthodox Republicans atop early polls
claims for its products.
Carson said it was absurd to allege
he’s connected to the company. “If
someone put me on their home page,
they did it without permission,” he
said.
Trump bristled when asked by
a debate moderator if his policy
proposals, including building a wall
along the U.S.-Mexico border and
deporting everyone who is in the U.S.
illegally, amounted to a “comic book”
campaign. And he defended his record
in the private sector despite having
to declare bankruptcy, casting it as a
business technique.
“I’ve used that to my advantage as
a businessman,” Trump said. “I used
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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been
circling Trump for months, seeking
to position himself as the heir to the
businessman’s supporters if he fades.
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Senate, he’s cast himself as anti-es-
tablishment and a thorn in the side of
GOP leaders.
Cruz
garnered
enthusiastic
applause when he criticized debate
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among the candidates, casting it as
a sign of media bias against Repub-
licans — a popular line with GOP
voters.
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contrast to the Democratic contest,
where Hillary Rodham Clinton is
strengthening her front-runner status
over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Campaigning in New Hampshire
ahead of the GOP debate, Clinton
said the Republican contests are like
a “reality TV show but the cast of
characters are out of touch with actual
reality.”
Wednesday’s debate in Colorado,
an important general election state,
focused on economic policy, including
taxes and job growth.
Rubio turned questions about his
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recently liquidating his retirement
account, into an opportunity to tout
his compelling personal story. The son
of Cuban immigrants, Rubio said he
didn’t inherit money from his family
and knows what it’s like to struggle to
pay loans and afford to raise a family.
“I know what it’s like to owe that
money,” Rubio said. “I’m not worried
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Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have each
sought to break through with more
mainstream voters. Kasich in partic-
ular was aggressive from the start in
bemoaning the unexpected strength of
unorthodox candidates.
“We are on the verge of perhaps
picking someone who cannot do this
job,” Kasich said.
Also on stage were former
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee,
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former
technology executive Carly Fiorina,
the star of the second GOP debate.
Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard
CEO, has struggled to capitalize on
that strong performance and has faded
toward the back of the pack.
The four lowest-polling candidates
participated in an earlier undercard
event: South Carolina Sen. Lindsay
Graham, former Pennsylvania Sen.
Rick Santorum, Louisiana Gov.
Bobby Jindal and former New York
Gov. George Pataki. None has gotten
close to breaking into the upper tier of
candidates.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., flanked by Rep. Cathy McMor-
ris Rodgers, R-Wash., left, and House Majority Leader
Kevin McCarthy of Calif., speaks during a news confer-
ence on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday after a
Special GOP Leadership Election.
Fresh starts as GOP
taps new speaker
WASHINGTON
—
(AP) House Republicans
embraced a new leader
Wednesday and prepared to
get behind a crisis-averting
budget-and-debt deal in a
day of dramatic fresh starts
at the Capitol after years of
division and disarray.
Wisconsin Rep. Paul
Ryan, the 2012 GOP vice
presidential candidate and
a telegenic spokesman for
conservative priorities, was
nominated by his colleagues
in a secret-ballot election
to serve as speaker of the
House, second in line to the
presidency. The full House
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Thursday.
“This begins a new day
in the House of Representa-
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the vote. “We are turning the
page.”
Immediately
after
choosing Ryan to chart a new
course for their fractured
party, Republicans trooped
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casting votes on a huge
two-year budget deal struck
in recent days between
President Barack Obama and
leaders of both parties.
The agreement would
raise the government’s
borrowing limit through
March of 2017, averting an
unprecedented default just
days away. It would also
set the budget of the federal
government for the next
two years, lifting onerous
spending caps and steering
away from the brinkmanship
and shutdown threats that
have haunted Congress for
years.
Outgoing Speaker John
Boehner of Ohio announced
his resignation last month
after a quarter-century in
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years in the speaker’s chair,
beset by the intractable
divisions between the party’s
pragmatists and purists
that now will be Ryan’s to
resolve. Ryan sounded an
optimistic note.
“We are not going to have
a House that looks like it
looked the last two years,”
he said after Wednesday’s
vote. “We are going to move
forward, we are going to
unify. Our party has lost its
vision, and we are going to
replace it with a vision.”
Earlier,
inside
the
ornate Ways and Means
Committee room where the
vote occurred, Ryan asked
lawmakers to pray for him,
and pray for each other.
He easily dispatched his
sole opponent, Florida Rep.
Daniel Webster, the choice
of a group of hard-core
conservatives, winning 200
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still must prevail in a vote of
the full House on Thursday,
when Democrats will have
a say, too, and will back the
minority leader, Rep. Nancy
Pelosi of California.
Still, the only real
suspense surrounds Ryan’s
margin of victory, as he is
certain to draw the support
of the vast majority of
Republicans, including some
who supported Webster but
pledged to vote for their
party’s nominee on the
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Wednesday’s budget bill
makes good on Boehner’s
promise to “clean the barn”
for Ryan on the way out,
removing the most conten-
tious issues that would have
confronted him immediately
upon becoming speaker.
Conservatives
loudly
protested the price tag and
a secretive, back-room
process, and farm-state
Republicans raised alarms
about cuts to federal crop
insurance programs.
The accord also became a
punching bag for GOP presi-
“We are not
going to have a
House that looks
like it looked the
last two years.”
— Paul Ryan,
Speaker of the House
dential candidates, including
Sens. Ted Cruz, Marco
Rubio, and Rand Paul, all of
whom denounced it ahead of
a Wednesday night presiden-
tial debate.
But the House appeared
likely to approve the legisla-
tion and send it to the Senate,
relying on a majority of
Democratic votes, a feature
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deals cut under Boehner’s
leadership.
“The outgoing speaker of
the House has partnered with
Democrats and Senate lead-
ership to craft a monstrosity
of a budget deal,” one hard-
liner, Rep. Mark Meadows of
North Carolina, complained,
calling on candidates for
speaker to reject the bill.
Ryan did not oblige. He
criticized the process used
to reach the bill, saying
that it “stinks,” but issued
a statement announcing he
would be voting for the deal
because it “will go a long
way toward relieving the
uncertainty hanging over
us.”
Indeed Ryan could ask for
no better parting gift from
Boehner at a moment when
GOP leaders are fretting
about the deep Republican
divisions on display in
Congress and the presidential
campaign, where outsider
candidates are leading estab-
lished politicians.
Dealing with the debt
limit and winning a budget
agreement would almost
certainly have forced Ryan
into the same types of
compromises with Obama
and the Democrats that
conservatives
routinely
denounced in Boehner. Now
he will have a freer hand,
though he faces his own
challenges, including the
need to pass a package of
spending bills by Dec. 11
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outlines in this week’s deal.
That exercise could bring
its own mess of troubles,
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thing from Planned Parent-
hood to the environment as
conservatives try to attach
favored policy provisions to
must-pass legislation. But
Boehner got the toughest
votes out of the way.
A reluctant candidate for
speaker, Ryan was drafted
by party leaders only after
Boehner’s heir apparent,
Majority Leader Kevin
McCarthy, took himself out
of the running. Ryan had
preferred to stay as chairman
of the Ways and Means
Committee, his dream job,
and was also concerned
about the impact on his wife
and three school-age children
in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Though he’s a 17-year
House veteran, Ryan will be
the youngest House speaker
since Rep. James Blaine,
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Some Democrats said
Ryan is a Republican they
can do business with. At
the same time they pointed
to strong policy differences
as shown in a budget he
produced in 2011 that
contained plans to cut social
programs as well as turn
Medicare into a voucher-like
program and Medicaid into
block grants to states.
Said Pelosi: “We welcome
the debate.”