Blog: Achievement gap widening for Native American students

Native American students, including American Indians and Alaska Natives, have seen virtually no improvement in their academic achievement gap at the same time that other minority groups have experienced improvements, a new report from The Education Trust finds. The gap between these students and white students has actually widened.

In 2011, just 18 percent of Native fourth graders were proficient or advanced in reading on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), while 42 percent of white fourth graders had reached those levels. Meanwhile, fourth grade reading performance for all other major ethnic groups rose between 2005 and 2011, but results for Native children stayed flat. They even had a lead over African American and Latino students in 2005 that has since disappeared.