Cross-district comparisons of percentage of students at or above Proficient in reading, grade 8 public schools: By urban district, 2003
Grade 8
Instructions: Read across the row corresponding to a district listed to the left of the chart. Match the shading intensity to the key to determine whether the percentage of students at or above Proficient in this district was found to be higher than, not statistically significantly different from, or lower than the district in the column heading. For example, in the row for Boston at grade 8: The percentage of students at or above Proficient in Boston was lower than that of the nation and Charlotte; not significantly different from New York City and San Diego; and was higher than that of large central cities, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, the District of Columbia, and Cleveland.
District had higher percentage than the district listed at the top of the column.
No statistically significant difference detected from the district listed at the top of the column.
District had lower percentage than the district listed at the top of the column.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2003 Trial Urban District Reading Assessment.
Major Findings
In order to provide a context for the data collected in the 2003 TUDA, results are presented for students attending public schools in the nation as a whole, as well as for public schools located in large central cities across the nation. "Urban districts" refers to the ten districts reported in this trial study. Eight of the ten urban districts consist entirely of schools in cities with a population of 250,000 or more (i.e., large central cities as defined by NCES); two of them (Charlotte and Los Angeles) consist primarily of schools in large central cities, but also have from one-quarter to one-third of their fourth- and eighth-grade students enrolled in surrounding urban fringe or rural areas. All of the data for both districts were used to compare with data from large central cities and the nation.
At grade 8, the percentage of students performing at or above Proficient in all districts except Charlotte was lower than that of the nation.
When compared with large central city public schools, higher percentages of students performed at or above Proficient in Charlotte and Boston, and lower percentages of students performed at or above Proficient in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, the District of Columbia, and Cleveland.
The percentage of eighth-grade students performing at or above Proficient in New York City and San Diego was not found to be statistically different from the percentage in large central cities.
