Reading levels for Texas fourth and eighth grade students were just below national averages in a new review of what children are learning.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress is a series of federally funded achievement tests.
Reading scores for fourth and eighth grade students held mostly steady last year. The average score for both grades was only four points higher than it was in 1992.
The review found that Texas eighth-graders who were tested had an average score of 260, compare to the U.S. average of 262, on a scale of 500.
On the fourth-grade level, the Texas average score was 219, just below the national average of 220.
The test results come eight years after the enactment of the No Child Left Behind law championed by then-President George W. Bush.
