A national test says Georgia’s fourth graders are doing better at math than ever before. But eighth grade math score remain flat, and fourth and eighth grade reading scores improved only slightly since 2009.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress provided some good news for Georgia: It’s one of only nine states that improved fourth grade math scores in the past two years.

State School Superintendent John Barge pointed to significant math and reading gains since 2005, but says there’s more work to be done. He says one problem is that the national exam sets a more rigorous definition of proficiency than state CRCT tests.

"And so the emphasis is on getting students to pass that CRCT," Barge says. "And if the expectation to pass that test is not as high as the expectation to pass the NAEP, we’re not going to see the performance on NAEP that we could see."

Barge says the state is beginning work to make the state CRCT exams more rigorous.

Tags: test, math, National Assessment of Educational Progress, fourth grade