Report: States See Test-Score Gains

Since the federal No Child Left Behind law was enacted nearly three years ago, almost half the states have seen rising math scores on their state exams for elementary school pupils, a report issued last week says.

Over the same period, it adds, reading scores have improved among 4th and 5th graders in 15 of the 23 states studied, and achievement gaps between minority and white students have begun to shrink in a number of them.

“In the majority of states we looked at, achievement is moving in the right direction,” said Daria Hall, a policy analyst for the Education Trust, the Washington-based research and advocacy group...