The Third National Assessment: Minorities and Mathematics.

The Third National Assessment of Educational Progress in Mathematics was conducted in 1982. Data are available on exercises given to national samples of white, black, and Hispanic 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds. Although black and Hispanic students continued to score below the national level of performance, they made greater gains than their white counterparts since the second assessment in 1978, especially on exercises assessing knowledge and skill. Students in schools with heavy minority enrollments made greater-than-average gains. The more mathematics courses taken by 17-year-olds, black or white, the higher the level of achievement. The assessment results support increased efforts to improve the learning of mathematics by minority students.