Two versions of the state's test score story

Let’s not sugarcoat it.

When the Idaho Department of Education recently released test results from the previous school year, focus was on the percentage of students who scored at or above grade level. The cup half-full approach showed some encouraging things. One of them is that on the three-part Idaho Standard Achievement Test, Coeur d’Alene students fared better than all their peers in the 10 largest districts except West Ada.

Coeur d’Alene students surpassed state averages: 61.6% of local students were rated proficient or advanced in English; 50.3% of students achieved that level of performance in math; and 58.9% of students were proficient or better in science.

But when the sugarcoating is removed and the half-empty glass is examined, those numbers mean that half of our students are not proficient in math and almost four in 10 are not proficient in English or science. By most measurements, a 40 percent non-proficiency rate would constitute an overall failing grade for Idaho.

Reading tests administered to early elementary students are a key indicator forecasting educational achievement. Again, there’s a glass half-full, half-empty phenomenon going on.

Knowing that students who are not reading at grade level by third grade will almost certainly fall further behind as they continue in education — and in life — it’s encouraging that Idaho’s test scores show trends of overall improvement. Scores rose as students aged: 63.1% of kindergartners statewide scored at grade level. By first grade, that had risen to 66.7%. The indicator showed 75.3% of second-graders were reading at grade level, the highest among the four grades. The average third-grade score was 73.2%.

The glass half-empty? While schools are doing their best to raise the reading the bar for kids, one can’t help but wonder why so many entry-level kids already are behind.

Well, we know the answer, don’t we? The youngest kids aren’t being taught or encouraged to read at home. That’s a failure on the parents’ part. It’s also an indictment on society, where electronic entertainment is playing increasingly prominent roles in rearing our children.

Glass half full: This shortcoming is one of the easiest to overcome. Study after study shows that by reading to our children from the earliest stages of their lives, literacy comes to them more easily and effectively. We’re not talking hours and hours of intensive parental work, either. Reading to your kids a little bit each night can have a dramatically positive, lifelong impact.

Investment in early education, earlier than some of us are accustomed to, also should gain momentum. It’s clear from test scores that while a lot of students are doing just fine, far too many are on the path to getting left behind.