27

Percentage of American 12th-graders in 11 states who tested Below Basic proficiency on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the results of which were released today.

26

Percentage of American 12th-graders reading Below Basic on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Just one-fifth of high school seniors read at levels of functional illiteracy 17 years earlier.

31

Percentage of 12th-grade males reading Below Basic, a six percent increase over the level in 1992;  just 20 percent of their female counterparts read at levels of functional illiteracy; a four percent increase since 1992.

51

Percentage of black male 12th-graders reading Below Basic on NAEP; that’s 15 percent higher than the number of black females reading Below Basic — and the highest level of illiteracy among all racial/ethnic gender groups.

0

Number of states that had fewer than one-fifth of its high school seniors perform Below Basic on the math portion of NAEP.

1

The only state — South Dakota — which had fewer than 20 percent of its 12th-graders read Below Basic on NAEP. (18 percent of the Mount Rushmore state’s students read at levels of functional illiteracy.)