Report: Boston students do well in reading and math, compared with students in other urban districts

By Tania deLuzuriaga, Globe Staff

Boston’s fourth- and eighth-graders are performing better in reading and math than students in other large urban school districts but still lag behind the national average, according to test scores released today.

The district demonstrated the highest math improvements among the 11 large school districts included in the urban portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. Reading improvements were marginal, though Boston continued to outperform other urban school districts.

Traditionally, the results of the NAEP are used at the state level to compare Massachusetts' performance to other states. However, school districts participating in the Trial Urban District Assessment have the option of going further, comparing themselves to other urban districts.

Mike Casserly, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition of 66 of the nation's largest urban public school systems, said it was useful to be able to compare Boston to other urban school districts, rather than to other districts within the state.

“In-state comparisons are very hard to make in a state like Massachusetts,” he said. “No one else looks like Boston.”

The test was administered to a sample of students in districts across the country earlier this year. In Boston, 1,300 fourth-graders took the math and reading test, while 1,100 eighth-graders took the math test and 1,200 took the reading test.

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