More on the College Board Initiatives

One of the more disturbing findings focused on 12th-grade reading levels on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress exams. In reading, 51 percent of African-American males and 45 percent of Hispanic males scored below basic. By contrast, 36 percent of African-American female students and 33 per cent of Hispanic female students scored below basic, while 24 percent of white male students and 13 percent of white female students scored below basic. Boosting the achievement of young men of color is "critical to the economic welfare of the country,'' said John Lee, who authored the statistical analysis report and is policy director for the College Board's Advocacy and Policy Center. "If we have to compete in a global sense, we can't do that if only women are driving the educational future of America,'' Lee said in an interview. "Men have to step up to the plate.''