The perception that students in urban schools do less well than others and have poor academic performance is not supported by the 2003 NAEP results.

New NAEP results show that students in urban districts score very much like their peers in other districts, not well below as is frequently claimed. Like student groups in other districts, some urban students show above average performance and some below average, but no pattern of under performance is suggested.

Student population characteristics in urban districts are not representative of the nation. Urban districts have greater than average numbers of students who are considered educationally disadvantaged.

Compared to the nation, the three million students enrolled in the participating urban districts are more likely to be eligible for federal lunch subsidies (72% to 40%), Hispanic (44% to 18%), and African-American (34% to 17%), and less likely to be white (14% to 59%).

One out of six students in the nation classified as English language learners are enrolled in the participating districts.

On the average, students in the ten urban districts attend school in larger classes on campuses with considerably larger enrollment than the national average.

In spite of enrolling a more challenging student population, urban public school systems perform about as well as others across the country.

Although representing a small portion of the urban school population, fourth- grade white students have reading and mathematics assessment scores at or above the national average in six of the ten participating districts.

On the fourth-grade reading assessment, African-American students score above the national average in four of the ten districts. Hispanic students exceed the national average in five of the districts.

Similar findings can be found for eighth-grade reading and fourth- and eighth-grade mathematics. (Tables for each grade and subject are attached with data disaggregated by race/ethnicity.)

In several of the participating districts, average NAEP scores meet or exceed national averages for most student groups. In Charlotte-Mecklenburg and New York City, white, African-American and Hispanic average scores met or exceeded the national average for their peers in almost all comparisons. Houston and Boston students were above average in most comparisons.

When demographics and family economics are considered, students in the participating urban districts, on the average, are not too different from other students across the nation. The common perception that students in urban public schools do not achieve is not supported by the NAEP results. The real story is that students in these urban school districts can compete.

Note: The districts participating in the NAEP 2003 assessments were Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Chicago, Cleveland, District of Columbia, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Diego.