Jeb Bush says Romney narrowed achievement gap in Massachusetts

Jeb Bush, who put education at the forefront during his two terms as Florida’s governor, used his pulpit at the Republican National Convention to talk up Mitt Romney’s education record in Massachusetts.

"Because he is a former governor, Mitt Romney understands that states must lead this national movement. In Massachusetts, Gov. Romney narrowed the gap between students of different races, raised testing standards, and put into place a merit scholarship ... He's a champion for bringing hope to education," Bush said in the Aug. 30 speech.

We have examined the claim about Massachusetts’ achievement gap in July, when Romney himself said it. Here’s another look.

A little on Massachusetts schools

In 1993, lawmakers in Massachusetts passed a landmark reform law that included the groundwork for the state accountability system (later called Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS), authorized charter schools and invested more money in local school districts. Its universal goal was to raise educational standards for all Massachusetts kids.
   
But it’s worth noting that the Bay State is already a leader in student achievement. Massachusetts, which has a disproportionately high number of colleges and universities, some of the nation’s wealthiest ZIP codes and a well-educated workforce, churns out many high-performing students.
       
But the glare of those top achievers makes the shadow of struggling students that much darker. That is to say, Massachusetts still has a significant achievement gap. And because the kids at the top do so well, it’s that much harder for everybody else to catch up.
   
"Our scores are high, so as they get higher it’s pretty hard to move up," said Kathleen Skinner, a policy director at the Massachusetts Teachers Association, a teachers union.
   
Narrowing the gap
   
When we checked this claim before, the Romney campaign pointed us to a 2007 MCAS test results summary, and specifically cited the 10th grade scores:
   
    10th Grade Proficiency In Math
    o    2005, White: 29%; Black: 19%. Gap = 10 points
    o    2007, White: 29%; Black: 26%. Gap = 3 points
   
    10th Grade Proficiency In English
    o    2005, White: 46%; Black: 30%. Gap = 16 points
    o    2007, White: 52%; Black: 40%. Gap = 12 points
   
That shows the achievement gap narrowing by 7 percentage points in math and by 4 percentage points in English.
   
But the gains in other grades are smaller.
   
Among eighth-graders, the gap tightened by only 1 point in math and 2 points in English. For seventh-graders, the change was 3 points in math, 5 points in English. Sixth grade: 1 point in math, no change in English. In fourth grade scores, the gap narrowed by 1 point in math and widened by 1 point in English. (Some of those are comparisons between 2006 scores and 2007, the only years provided in the test results summary.)
   
Skinner noted an important point about the MCAS: 10th-graders have to pass it in order to graduate.
   
"They start paying attention," she said.

We also took a look at scores for the following year, comparing the achievement gap between 2007 and 2008. (These charts offer a slightly different comparison from the previous year, which looked at students who scored "proficient" on each test. The 2007-08 chart includes those scoring proficient and higher.) The best gains again were made by 10th graders who narrowed the gap by six points in English. But there was no change in the gap in math scores, and lower grades showed only one- or two-point gains, or no improvement at all, and the gap widened in a couple of instances, such as eighth-grade science scores. The 2008-2009 test score summary reflected a similar trend: small gains in some subjects and small setbacks in others.
   
Beverly Miyares, also with the Massachusetts Teachers Association, added that the dropout rate among black students in Massachusetts increased from 2002 to 2004, rising from 4.9 to 6.3.
   
That means more under-performing students who dropped out of school didn’t drag down the overall average test scores.
   
Romney’s role
   
In claims such as this, we don’t just consider the accuracy but also whether the speaker deserves credit: How responsible was Romney for narrowing the achievement gap?
   
"The most important point to make with Gov. Romney’s record is that the reform he initiated was part of a much larger and longer movement that existed in Massachusetts," said Chad d'Entremont, executive director of the Rennie Center, which provides independent research about public education reform in Massachusetts.
   
Glenn Koocher, executive director with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, which represents school boards, was less generous: "He had nothing to do with it. It’s the teachers in the classrooms who are making the difference."
   
Skinner, the expert with the teachers’ union, added that Romney was "a somewhat absent ‘education’ governor. He was very agenda driven."
   
"We would argue that he didn’t put anything in place" to narrow the gap, she said.
   
We also wondered whether Romney had pushed any initiatives specifically aimed at helping minority students. Koocher and Skinner both mentioned charter schools, which are favored by many Republicans.
   
"The charter school program was always popular among minority parents (and) any parents that wanted to get their kids out of the public schools," Koocher said, adding that vouchers commonly used to pay tuition at charter schools are unconstitutional in Massachusetts. Instead, the per-pupil state spending is deducted from the public school district’s budget.
   
Ryan Williams, spokesman for the Romney campaign, said protecting the 1993 reform legislation was an important effort by Romney. He said there were attempts to repeal the requirement that 10th graders pass the test in order to graduate, and Romney "stood firm on that and did not back down."
   
"It was one of the bigger things we had success in blocking," Williams said. "A lot of what Romney did when he was governor was to preserve that legislation. He said, ‘I’m not going to roll these standards back.’"

Skinner mentioned another, perhaps less obvious, initiative from Romney that helped many minority students: universal health care. Romney signed a health care reform law in Massachusetts that led to a 98 percent coverage rate.
   
"In Massachusetts, all of our kids have health insurance, and I don’t think anybody should underestimate the impact that has on learning. Our kids get vaccinated, they can go to the dentist, they can go to the eye doctor," she said. "Their health is less of an issue than it is in other places."
   
Our ruling
   
Bush said, "in Massachusetts, Gov. Romney narrowed the gap between students of different races."

State education figures over two years support Bush’s claim about learning gains when Romney was governor, although it’s worth noting that some areas declined on Romney’s watch, such as the drop-out rate. And it’s always somewhat dubious to take a snapshot of statistics from only one or two years, when, as d'Entremont said, "significant gains in student achievement don’t happen overnight, and the gains in Massachusetts are the result of a 20-year reform effort."
   
What’s more, Romney, a single-term governor, should not get all the credit for improvement in the achievement gap, which is influenced by myriad factors.
   
Bush’s statement about Romney is partially accurate but omits a lot of important information and overstates the former governor’s impact. We rate it Half True.

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