LANSING – Michigan has been making educational improvements since the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, but at one of the slowest rates in the nation, a new report said.

The study by Education Sector showed Michigan with the fifth lowest improvement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress of the 50 states and the District of Columbia between 2003 and 2011.

Michigan students improved their composite scale scores on the test by 5.3 points over the period, while the national increase was about 20 points.

The report said it was unclear what role NCLB might have played in the wide range of achievement changes over the period, but is said social issues were not likely a factor.

“The range is quite remarkable, suggesting that the states, not national social forces, produced the observed changes in achievement,” the report said. “Two jurisdictions, the District of Columbia and Maryland, gained nearly 50 points – more than twice the national average. Seven states gained more than 30 points, 50 percent above the national average. At the same time, 12 states gained fewer than 10 points, less than half the national average, and two, Iowa and West Virginia, actually lost ground.”

Correcting for income levels and lower initial performance in 2003 also changed the ranking of the states little, the report showed.

“Here, non-school factors account for little of the variation in gains,” the report said. “This means that school-based factors may be having a substantial effect on which students are learning more and which are learning less.”

But the report showed that since NCLB was adopted the education gap for low-income students has closed. Michigan ranked 31st among the states and DC for improvement among students eligible for free and reduced lunch, with their scores improving 22.1 points.

On that measure, Maryland was first and New Jersey, third overall, was second. West Virginia was the only state to see the scores decline, by 8.4 points.

On average nationally, low-income students improved by 25.6 points.

“The range in achievement gains is more than 63 points – a year and a half in achievement per assessment,” the report said.

The group urged the federal government to spend the next several years, particularly years where states are operating under waivers of the NCLB requirements, to determine what school changes are most effective at improving achievement.

“The new state achievement gap, though disturbing to behold, provides encouragement,” the report said. “It shows that some states are reforming their education systems substantially. It shows that education policy can promote student achievement for large numbers of schools, and that gains are not all about economic circumstance.”

While the federal government should require all states to adopt policies proven successful in the highest achieving states, it should allow room for the lower achieving schools to experiment as well, the report said. “Ironically, the best course for the struggling states is for the federal government to let them experiment, too. They lack experience with success and their plans appear less ambitious. As a nation, we still have too much to learn to foreclose options,” it said.

But the key, the report said, is for all states to show student growth. “The federal government has always been right to take upon itself the role of the great equalizer. It should steer a middle course to get us there – using the states as laboratories to identify those measures that reduce inequality, but giving states the freedom to experiment – if they are willing to be held accountable for what students achieve,” it said.

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