Three out of four high school sophomores this year passed Minnesota's reading exam that counts toward graduation, according to results released Monday by state education officials.
But the state's harrowing achievement gap persists, with less than half of black and Hispanic students passing the test.
The class of 2010 is the first to be measured by the new graduation test. The questions are embedded in the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, the exams the state uses to determine how well schools perform.
The exam for writing is given to ninth-grade students, reading to 10th-graders and math to 11th-graders. Students must pass all three by the end of their senior year before they can get a diploma.
State education officials were quick to say this year's overall results on the comprehensive assessments reading test show promise. Seventy-one percent of 10th-graders were proficient in reading, a 9-percentage-point increase from last year.
Education Commissioner Alice Seagren said she was thrilled with the results, which she said shows students can meet the more rigorous standards set in 2003.
"We had dramatic gains for every group of students," she said. "I was so pleased."
When Minnesota introduced high school exit exams in 1997, school districts focused on getting students to meet graduation standards. Summer school was the main weapon of choice.
But students took the reading and math tests in eighth grade then, giving them four years to retake the exams and meet graduation standards. Now, they have less time, because the tests are given later in high school.
School districts have been putting more resources toward remediation, given the more rigorous standards on the tests and shorter retake period.
Last year, South Washington County started targeting more junior high and high school students who were struggling on local reading tests, said Rick Spicuzza, the district's director of assessment, research and evaluation.
Those students were put into a reading intervention program to work by themselves and in small groups to improve their skills. All junior highs have literacy coordinators, and the high schools have additional online resources.
"In the last two years, there's been significant investment put toward students who are on the cusp or at risk of not passing," Spicuzza said.
Steve Schellenberg, St. Paul schools assistant research director, said the state is reporting test results much more quickly than in past years. But even so, St. Paul has only a week to get the word out to those not yet enrolled in summer school.
"We're still scrambling," he said.
The state Department of Education has not closely analyzed what skills students generally are lagging in, such as grammar or comprehension. But school districts have that data for individual students to help them formulate remediation plans.
"That way, the schools can really focus on the areas students need to work on," Seagren said.
Although students have a shorter time frame to retake the test, Seagren said they would have more chances to take it throughout the year, since it's now online.
St. Paul has put a solid summer program in place and plans to have students who haven't passed retake the test at the end of the summer and at the end of each quarter. That way, students have nine opportunities to pass the reading test.
Data on Minnesota's math, reading and writing scores for third-graders through high schoolers, including district-by-district breakdowns, are scheduled for release June 30.
Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments are required under No Child Left Behind, a federal law calling for all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014.
States are required to develop extensive standards and testing to evaluate schools, and schools that miss benchmarks set by their states face increasingly tough consequences.
Megan Boldt can be reached at 651-228-5495.