Oregon Public Broadcasting

Every public school student in Oregon between third and tenth grade takes statewide tests. According to comprehensive results released Monday, scores at nearly every level went up. Rob Manning reports.

State officials announced that test scores went up between 2008 and 2009 for every test at every grade level with just three exceptions – third grade reading, and 7th and 10th grade writing.

Jake Weigler is a Department of Education spokesman.

Jake Weigler: “Overall in the state, we’ve got a positive trend, people are inching upwards in terms of their scores, more and more of our students are making or exceeding the standards that are put out. So we know we’re making progress, but we know we have more work to do.”

That mixed message applies particularly to one set of students: Hispanic middle schoolers.

In general, Hispanic students lag 20 or 30 percentage  points behind white students. But Hispanic students are catching up quickly.

Six percent more Latino 6th graders passed the reading test – while the increase was only three percent for whites.

Medford schools’ student services director, Julie York, says she credits training in second language teaching.

Julie York: “Once that training was done, about a year ago, we did adopt curriculum that was really designed for English Language Learners. We had not had previous curriculum, and I do believe those two pieces, and conscious effort on how best to serve that population, is what we can attribute that growth to.”

York also credits that much-maligned federal law, No Child Left Behind, for forcing schools to focus on students on the down side of the achievement gap, like Hispanics.

State officials said they weren’t sure why Hispanics are improving at such a fast rate, while other ethnic groups are not.