New data indicates that the academic performance of students in U.S. history, civics, and geography has barely changed at all since 2010, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

The data comes from assessments administered nationally to 29,000 eighth-graders across the country. " Each assessment was given to a different group of eighth-grade students, and contained multiple-choice and constructed-response questions," according to the NAEP.

It found that only a quarter of the sampled eighth graders showed a "solid or better performance" in all three subjects, according to ABC News.

Some of the results were startling, according to the report. Only 45 percent of eighth-grade respondents, for examples, could interpret the difference in time between time zones. Even worse, only a third knew that the "'the government of the United States should be a democracy.'"

Further, the percentages of students who scored at an advanced level in the 2014 findings were dismal. Only 1 percent of students placed advance in U.S. history; 3 percent in geography, and 2 percent in civics. 

Another big finding from the study was that since 2010, despite no overall noticeable improvement, specifically "Hispanic students made gains in U.S. history and white students made gains in U.S. history and civics," the report said. 

Though the assessment was not aimed to determine "the context needed to explain student performance or what works in classrooms,", it did find that more students than ever claimed to use computers to supplement instruction and fewer said they read from a textbook on a daily basis. 

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Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

04/29/2015