Data from the NAEP 1996 Long-Term Reading Assessment show that overall student reading performance, as tested at age levels 9, 13, and 17, had increased for both 9- and 13-year-olds since the first assessment in 1971. Scores for 9- and 13-year-olds in most racial/ethnic and gender sub-groups reflected the overall increase. Black 17-year-olds were the only members of that age group to achieve an increase, and they did so while black dropout rates were declining.
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