Fast Report

• The nation’s 12th-graders have a pretty good grasp of economics, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported Aug. 8.

Nearly four out of five 12th graders (79 percent) scored at or above the “basic” level on the first-ever NAEP exam on U.S. economics.

According to a summary of the findings from the Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), that means they have “the ability to identify a limited set of important economic concepts and relationships and use them in simple applications involving economic events and situations.”

About 3 percent scored at the “advanced level, which means they “were able to use an extensive set of economic concepts in complex analyses of economic policies and events.”

NAGB Chair David M. Winick said, “While there is clear room for improvement, the results are not discouraging.”

Only about one-third of the states require an economics course for graduation, but 87 percent of seniors said they were exposed to some economics content in high school, the study found.

Changes proposed on ‘dangerous schools’

• An advisory committee appointed by Education Secretary Margaret Spell­ings recommended changes in the way school districts and states address the requirements on “persistently dangerous schools.”

Under NCLB, schools identified by states as “persistently dangerous” must give students the option to transfer to a safer public school in the same district.

Relatively few schools have been so designated, however -- just 47 in the 2003-04 school year and 39 in 2004-05.

“State criteria for determining what schools are persistently dangerous vary widely and many are nearly impossible to meet,” the report says.

The Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools Advisory Committee recommends that additional factors, such as school climate surveys and instances of substance abuse, bullying, gang activity, and racism be considered, as well as incidents of violence.

And instead of “merely determining unsafe schools at any single point in time,” the report urges a focus on “the creation of safer school climates over time.”

Federal report offers statistics on rural schools

• Students in rural public schools are likely to be in smaller classes than students in other locales but are less likely to enroll in college, according to a recently released federal report.

Status of Education in Rural America, by the National Center for Education Statistics, also reports the following:

• A larger percentage of rural public school students in the fourth and eighth grades scored at or above the proficient level on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in science in 2005 than their counterparts in urban or suburban schools. In reading and math, rural fourth and eighth graders outscored their counterparts in urban schools but did not do as well as students in suburban schools.

• Per-student expenditures were higher in rural areas in 2003-04 ($8,400) than in cities ($8,100) and suburbs ($7,900).

• Rural schools tended to receive a smaller percentage of their revenues in 2003-04 from federal sources (9 percent) than urban schools (11 percent) or suburban schools (6 percent).