Results from the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Civics test were released today. NAEP reports aggregate scores from a national (and representative) sample of 4th, 8th, and 12th grade students. The results were not encouraging. From Education Week,
Many high school seniors may be old enough to vote, but just one-quarter of them demonstrate at least a “proficient” level of civics knowledge and skills, based on the latest results from a prominent national exam.
That statistic, 24 percent, represents a slight dip from the proportion of 12th graders scoring proficient or “advanced” in the subject four years earlier.
The percentage of eighth-grade students scoring proficient or advanced (22 percent) has not changed since 1998. Fourth-grade students made slight gains. They raised their proficiency score to 27 percent, a three percent increase from 2006.
