Patrick Says Achievement Gap Is Narrowing

Gov. Deval Patrick is saying that statewide education testing results show the achievement gap between children of different socio-economic and racial backgrounds is narrowing.

Patrick announced the 2010 results for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests, known as MCAS, Tuesday.

He said that African American and Hispanic/Latino students improved the gap between their scores and scores of white students in multiple grades in both the English and math sections of the test.

Overall, tenth graders scoring proficient or higher in English fell from 79 to 78 percent and stayed at 75 percent for math.

The MCAS was first implemented in 1998 and the math and English sections became a high school graduation requirement for the class of 2003. The science and technology section first became a graduation requirement in 2010.