Word: fourth
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Obama Administration, the Department of Education offers one of the most comprehensive looks yet at the achievement gap between white and black pupils, based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The NAEP (pronounced nape) is a federal standardized test - known as "the nation's report card" - administered to fourth- and eighth-grade public-school students in reading and math. The state-by-state results show clear evidence of a continued problem: black students trail their white classmates in every state. But the report also offers some encouraging signs: overall scores have risen, and racial disparities are gradually shrinking...
Highlight Reel: 1. The bad: Black students trail white students in reading and math in every state. The average overall gap in fourth and eighth grades was 26 points on the 500-point NAEP. Some areas saw an even larger disparity: Massachusetts, for instance, had a 40-point gap in eighth-grade math. (See pictures of a public boarding school...
...good: Scores for all students have risen since the NAEP was first administered, and the achievement gap narrowed by an average of 7 points from 1992 to 2007 (the date of the most recent test). Black fourth-graders have gained meaningful ground in math and reading since the test was first administered, in the early 1990s, while eighth-graders have made slight progress...
...problem: The report is not good news for Wisconsin. Excluding the District of Columbia, the Badger State had the nation's largest achievement gap in three of four areas: fourth- and eighth-grade reading as well as fourth-grade math. As in many Northern and Midwestern states, Wisconsin's white students generally perform well, providing a stark contrast to its underperforming minorities. Conversely, the small achievement gap in places like West Virginia (with a racial divide of just 13 points in fourth-grade reading) can prove a mixed blessing, as it often indicates that white students are missing the mark...
...risk and peril," says the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce's Naville, who points out that both countries have "a lot at stake" in each other's economies. Switzerland is the U.S.'s 15th largest export market and, with almost $149 billion spent in 2008, its fourth largest recipient in terms of direct investment. Switzerland, for its part, invested nearly $195 billion in the U.S. last year. (See the top 10 tax dodgers...