“Youth Indicators 2005: Trends in the Well-Being of American Youth,” is posted by the National Center for Education Statistics.
American teenagers and young adults have made substantial academic improvements over the last three decades, nearly doubling their college-completion rates and improving scores on national mathematics exams, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Education.
The report, produced by the department’s National Center for Education Statistics, notes that the proportion of 25- to 29-year-olds completing college increased from 16 percent in 1970 to 29 percent in 2004. It also says scores on National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in mathematics rose for 13- and 17-year-olds of all races between 1973 and 2004.
But academic gaps between white students and their lower-achieving black and Hispanic peers, while smaller than they used to be, remain large. Among 25- to 29-year-olds in 2004, for example, 11 percent of Hispanics and 17 percent of blacks had earned a bachelor’s degree, compared with 34 percent of whites.