Newswise — Fourth and eighth-grade mathematics test scores were down for the first time since the federal government started administering the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 1990. John W. Sipple, a public schools expert and assistant professor at Cornell’s Department of Development Sociology, analyzed socio-economic factors that may influence student performance. He says though it’s hard to assign a causal link between performance and poverty, schools in America are educating a growing number of poor students.

Bio: www.devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/people/john-sipple

Sipple says:

“New York state’s fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress mathematics scores dropped from 240 to 237 between 2013 and 2015 – a statistically significant drop. The 2015 score is statistically no different from the 2011 score of 238, but both are statistically lower than the 2007 and 2009 scores.

“Eighth-grade mathematics, and fourth and eighth-grade reading scores remained unchanged from the prior assessment in 2013.

“Between the 2007-2008 recession and 2012 and 2013, free and reduced price lunch rates increased steadily across all types of school districts including cities and rural areas, and those with average need and low need.

“Despite small drops in the last year or two, student free and reduced price lunch rates across all district types remain higher now than before the recession of 2008. The 2015 fourth-graders are the first group of National Assessment of Educational Progress test takers to enter kindergarten after the recession.

“Nearly all school districts engaged in programmatic cuts in the years immediately following the recession as state aid was cut, the local property tax cap was enacted, and Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds ran out.

“Assigning causal relationships is very hard, but schools are responsible for educating an increasing proportion of poor children while budgets have been constrained since 2009.”