Critics of public education, of whom I am one, must admit that the results of the Spring 1997 third-grade reading tests are surprisingly good. This is the result of the hard work of the students, teachers, and administrators in these districts, who should be congratulated. As unpopular as it is to ever admit success, Massachusetts has achieved a good measure of equity when it comes to teaching basic reading skills. The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills defines these skills as understanding the overall meaning of a text, identifying factual details, understanding the literal meaning of words or phrases, making simple inferences, and summarizing a text. It is at the next two levels of achievement, Proficient and Advanced, that there are marked differences among the districts.
Some districts have a lot more Advanced readers than others.
Per capita income is a crude index of the socio-economic status of a community. That it correlates so highly with reading scores strongly suggests that the test is measuring a large amount of home-mediated learning. These are skills that come largely from extensive interactions with educated parents, who have spent years reading and talking to their children. They are not skills that are taught in most third grades. As part of the Education Reform Act of 1993, Massachusetts will begin administering its own tests in Spring 1998, based on its own curriculum frameworks.