Oregon Public Broadcasting

A new report finds that Oregon's achievement gap is closing between white and minority students.  That's after five years of assessments under No Child Left Behind. Rob Manning has more.

The report from the national Center on Education Policy confirms that minority students are slowly catching up with their white counterparts in terms of meeting the federal standards, or 'benchmarks'.

But, the Center on Education Policy also looked at how many students might be far exceeding the benchmarks, or falling far short of them.

Center president, Jack Jennings says that a study of averages across the board shows schools may be neglecting some kids.

Jack Jennings: “It’s a warning sign that the state should do a review to see whether schools are concentrating so much on what they call the bubble kids, or kids who are just below the bar.”

State officials say they would need more data to test Jennings’ theory on averages. But they agree with the report’s other findings.