Math Scores Add Up for Hispanic Students

A new report, Math Scores Add Up for Hispanic Students, shows significant strides made by fourth and eighth grade Hispanic students over the past 10 years, and this increase reflects a steady trend. Made possible with support from The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the report uses National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data and highlights top performing states, large cities, and select school districts.

Given that Hispanic students comprise about one-quarter of the national data, and 40 percent of the large city data, this progress suggests some optimism about future trends.

At the same time as these gains were occurring, the percentages of Hispanic students taking the NAEP assessments were also steadily increasing. In the grade four assessment, Hispanic students were 19 percent of the national public school sample in 2003, and increased their share to 25 percent just ten years later, in 2013. In eighth grade, Hispanic students were only 15 percent of the sample in 2003, but increased eight percentage points to 23 percent by 2013.

A short accompanying video also is available.