WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Most of the urban school districts that participated in the 2009 National Association of Educational Progress had below-average science scores.
Three of the 17 urban districts that participated that year -- Austin, Texas, Charlotte, N.C., and Jefferson County in the Louisville, Ky., area -- had science scores equal to the national average for fourth-graders, the U.S. Education Department said. Only Austin had scores similar to the national average at the eighth-grade level.
"It is simply unacceptable that we are not comprehensively educating many schoolchildren in urban districts on the basics of science, let alone to the highest levels needed for our nation to be competitive," said David Driscoll, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board.
The association, known as the Nation's Report Card, tests a sample of school districts in a range of subjects.
In 2009, black students continued to have significantly lower scores on average than white ones. Scores generally tended to be lower in districts where a high proportion of students are from racial or ethnic minorities, are not native speakers of English or are from families with incomes low enough to make them eligible for free lunches.
