Students throughout the district have been putting their pencils to standardized tests recently, and year after year, black students score below their white classmates. This disparity in academic performance is known as the achievement gap. It's a national problem—and a local problem here in South Orange and Maplewood—and each round of test scores puts the problem in sharp focus.

Paul Roth, the district's chief information officer, has been tracking the numbers, using the results of the state standardized tests given to middle school students. Other exams have changed, but for the past three years, the same test has been administered to sixth through eighth graders, giving Roth the chance to measure outcomes.

Last week, he presented a cautious assessment on the achievement gap to school leaders, providing a snapshot of where test scores are—and for the first time, the progress of at-risk students. The numbers are promising, Roth said.

The achievement gap, as it's commonly defined, is the discrepancy on standardized test scores between students, with white students outperforming their black peers. While there is no single cause, or a clear solution, closing the divide is among the district's top educational goals.

The analysis presented to the Board of Education on May 3 once again showed black students lagging. Roth equated the gap to the 100-yard dash. At-risk students, who are mostly black, are taking off 50 yards behind the start line. White students cross the finish line first, but "it does look like our at-risk students are gaining a little," Roth said.

For instance, test scores have risen for struggling students in Project Ahead, a remedial reading program. In 2008 only one child in Project Ahead scored proficient in language arts. Last year, almost 50 middle school students—nearly all black—scored proficient.

For all students, the gap in language arts is narrowing. In the eighth grade, 97 percent of white students scored proficient last year, compared to 84.5 percent of black students.

In the sixth and seventh grades, a larger percentage of black and white students scored proficient, but a large achievement gap still exists, the report said. Those numbers showed 96.4 percent white vs. 71.2 percent black student proficiency in sixth grade; and 94.7 percent white vs. 69.1 percent black student proficiency in seventh grade.

The number that Roth points to, however, is the average improvement of those students. In seventh grade, the number of black students who scored proficient in Language Arts nearly doubled from the year before. "Black students are growing slightly faster than white students," Roth said. "We know something good is happening with our intervention programs."

Math scores dipped for both white and black students when compared to the first year of the analysis, and the gap remains wide. For example, in the seventh grade, 92.4 percent of white students scored proficient in math while only 61.8 percent of black students did so.

The bright spot in math were students who are most academically successful in math—those in Levels 4 and 5, where whites outnumber black students 2-to-1. In these highest level math classes, nearly every student scored proficient regardless of race.

The school district is committed to eliminating the variations of achievement among groups correlated with race, socioeconomic status, gender and special needs. Roth's report is titled "A Deeper Look into Assessing Student Learning Outcomes" and is online on the district website.

There is a sense of urgency to close the gap. Last month, Nancy Solomon won a Peabody Award for her radio documentary "Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools Are Failing Black Students." Solomon explored Columbia High School and how the district is struggling to close the academic achievement gap between its white and black students.

Superintendent Brian Osborne has convened a 60-person task force to look into the achievement gap's causes and possible remedies, including how leveling, which begins in middle school, might contribute to the disparity. Solomon's work, he said, highlighted the need to act.

On Monday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m., the Board of Education will host a discussion on district goals in the Columbia High School library.