Second to one

A new set of educational achievemnet scores once again put California at the bottom on the heap. The Oakland Tribune has the story. As the old education joke goes, thank goodness for Mississippi. Were it not for that Southern state, California would rank dead last nationally in science test scores — with 50 percent of its fourth-graders falling below basic achievement levels, according to national scores released Wednesday. In eighth-grade, California tied with Hawaii for second-to-last place, with Mississippi again pulling up the rear on what federal officials call the nation's report card. New Hampshire and North Dakota sat at the top of the national heap in science scores, with 17 and 18 percent of fourth-grade students falling below basic, respectively. The National Assessment of Educational Progress includes a representative sample of more than 300,000 fourth-, eighth-and 12th-grade students tested nationwide between January and March of 2005. The scores released Wednesday were not all bad for the Golden State: California's students posted the largest gains in the country.