Student performance on the Minnesota basic-skills reading test leveled off this year, marking the end of five consecutive years of gains.

State figures released Wednesday showed that 79 percent of the state's eighth-graders passed the test, compared with 80 percent last year.

Math scores remained constant, with 72 percent of eighth-graders passing. Math passing rates have changed little over the past five years.

In Minneapolis, the news was worse: The percentage of students passing the reading test dipped after four years of improvement. Fifty-one percent of Minneapolis students passed this year, compared with 56 percent last year. In St. Paul, reading passing rates were about the same, also after previous gains. Fifty-five percent passed this year, compared with 56 percent last year.

Statewide, reading passing rates for some groups -- black, low-income and special-education students, for example -- showed dips after several years of solid gains.

Such results raise some troubling questions: Despite all the money and effort that schools have spent to get more kids to pass the tests, has student achievement in reading peaked? And will math results be forever stuck in neutral?

This year's disappointing scores are more like a bump in the road leading toward continued improvement, said Christine Jax, commissioner of the state Department of Children, Families and Learning.

She said testing experts have said that results on new tests improve over the first few years, then flatten out before again showing improvement.

"When the tests are first introduced, teachers, parents and students say, 'What's on the tests, what haven't we been teaching, what haven't we been learning?'" said Jax at a news conference called to announce the results. "They address that, and fill the holes and change the curricula. ... You see the scores increase as people begin to find out what's on the tests and how to take the tests. Then you see a plateau."

Jax also said the state might need to come up with better ways for schools to teach math.

Already, she said, SciMath Minnesota, a nonprofit Twin Cities organization dedicated to improving math and science education, is circulating plans for math instruction to school districts.

Jax said reading-test scores could stagnate another year or two before they start improving again.

But she said she's convinced that scores will go up again in the next few years because of Minnesota's commitment to education and a bubbling-up effect from the state's higher-standards graduation rule -- the Profile of Learning -- which is in effect in all grade levels and is intended to improve student performance in all areas of study.

Concern in Cities

Despite Jax's rosy predictions and her reference to this year's nonimproving scores as "consistent," Minneapolis officials clearly were troubled by the decline in their reading-test passing rate.

"We're deeply disappointed and really troubled that the progress we've been making over the last four years has not been sustained," said Minneapolis Superintendent Carol Johnson. "We're particularly concerned about the achievement of African-American students."

District figures showed that the percentage of black eighth-graders passing the reading test dropped to 36 percent from last year's 42 percent.

Johnson said the district must focus on consistently getting kids to class, because attendance is closely tied to student performance.

She also wants to use experienced teachers as mentors to help newer teachers, and to find ways to keep experienced teachers from transferring out of the district's most troubled schools.

St. Paul Superintendent Patricia Harvey said test-score improvement in her district stalled this year largely because of population changes.

There are more kids in the district this year whose limited English skills and economic status make it harder for them to pass the tests.

Of students who took the reading test this year, for instance, those who are eligible for subsidized lunch programs (a widely used indicator of poverty) soared from 53 to 65 percent.

"In other words ... this group is very different," she said.

For good news, Children, Families and Learning officials stressed improved reading and math scores over time among American Indian students and those who don't speak fluent English. Indian passing rates in reading were up this year. Special-education, black, Hispanic and Asian students also have made significant long-term gains.

Yet this year's results showed reading passing rates leveling off or declining among many student groups, including black, special-education and low-income eighth-graders.

The statewide passing rate for eighth-grade black students, for example, dropped from 48 percent last year on the reading test to 45 percent this year.

As usual, many of the lowest-scoring schools were in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and top-10 lists for highest passing rates were generously sprinkled with schools in such west-suburban districts such as Edina and Wayzata.

Schools' ups, downs

Across the state, the leveling-off of test scores masked both triumphs and disappointments at individual schools.

Minneapolis' Windom Open School, which saw passing rates in math and reading drop precipitously last year, chalked up a big increase over last year's passing rates of 39 percent in math and 40 percent in reading. This year, the math passing rate was 47 percent, and 53 percent of students passed the reading test.

Jean Neuman, who became principal in February, gave a lot of the credit to former Principal Donna Grant and the school's site council.

"They knew more direct instruction was important," Neuman said. "That came with individual tutoring, tutoring with our business partners, and teacher tutoring after school. There was increased time for math and reading instruction on a daily basis."

But at Red Lake Middle School, where 12 percent of the eighth-graders passed the math test and 33 percent passed the reading test, the progress that was made last year seemed to slog to a halt. That didn't bother school reading facilitator and librarian Jill Parson.

"Actually, it's not a big concern," she said. "We certainly don't want them to go down. But when you have a different class, you have a different makeup [of students]. We have students who are not quite as attentive [this year]."

St. Anthony Middle School's up-and-down passing rates on the basic-skills tests have been a "roller coaster," said parent Diana Hearn, who also works as a teacher's aide in the school. This year's passing rate for math rose from 70 to 76 percent, after taking a nosedive from 1999's 88 percent.

Principal Beth Russell said the small size of the school's eighth-grade class makes things volatile.

"One or two kids can make that difference," she said. "We're glad to see our math scores go up, but we're disappointed about last year's scores."

Looking over her son Aaron's test scores in Russell's office, Hearn noted that he only missed one of the 68 math questions, and one out of the 40 reading questions.

"I didn't think it was that hard," Aaron said. "I felt it was mostly stuff I knew."

While the 14-year-old wasn't nervous, many of his classmates were. Ryan Murphy, 14, said he was studying sample tests at 9:30 p.m. the night before. Anne McGovern, 14, said she thought the math was going to be hard.

"The part I was nervous about was where we couldn't use a calculator," she said. "But once I took it, it was fine."

Lull is expected

According to at least one national expert, this year's Minnesota test results mirror trends in other states. Brian Stecher, senior social scientist in assessment and accountability at the Rand Corp. in California, said it is common for scores to be below expectations the first year of a test.

As teachers learn what skills students need to pass the test, scores climb for a few years. Then they plateau. At that point, he said, "the time comes to figure out other strategies to help kids master material they haven't mastered previously."

Stecher said that if 75 percent of eighth-graders are passing the tests, perhaps teachers should be satisfied.

"You have three years for the other 25 percent to pass, and how many people don't graduate?" he said. "If 90 or 95 percent of eighth-graders passed the test, you would wonder what the remaining years of high school are for."

At the State Capitol, Rep. Alice Seagren, R-Bloomington, said that testing entirely different groups of students from one year to the next is likely to create "ups and downs" and that she is glad "we're holding our own."

"My concern would be if there were drastic drops," said Seagren, who heads the House K-12 Education Finance Division.

But she found the decline in Minneapolis reading scores frustrating.

"I just don't know what the answers are anymore," she said.

Statewide, 64,198 eighth-graders took the math test, and 64,376 took the reading tests. All Minnesota students are required to pass the tests to get their high school diplomas. Students who fail one or both of the tests can keep taking them until they pass.

The plan was to deliver individual test results to Minnesota schools Wednesday. When the scores go out to parents and students depends on the school district. Most will be sent out in the next couple of weeks.

This year marks the first that students as young as fifth grade were allowed to take the tests.

According to state statistics, 256 fifth-through seventh-graders took the reading test this year, and 275 took the math test. Thirty-eight percent passed the math test, and 52 percent passed the reading test.

The change is opposed by Jax, who has argued that too many kids passing the tests before eighth grade could drag down the eighth-grade scores, which are used as benchmarks. The Legislature is considering a bill to limit the test to eighth grade and up.

Also this year, more testing safeguards are in place to avoid errors such as the one in last year's math test that affected more than 47,000 students.

Jessie Montaño, assistant commissioner for teaching and learning at Children, Families and Learning, said last week that with the new safeguards in place, no further scoring errors would occur.

-- Norman Draper is at ndraper@startribune.com .

Staff writers Lucy Y. Her, Mary Jane Smetanka, Anthony Lonetree and Duchesne Paul Drew contributed to this report.