Students’ grasp of US history lags

Federal education officials said they were encouraged by a slight increase in eighth-grade scores since the last time the history test was administered, in 2006. But even those gains offered little to celebrate, with fewer than a third of eighth-graders able to answer even a “seemingly easy question’’ asking them to identify an important advantage that the American forces had over the British during the Revolutionary War, the government’s statement on the results said.

Diane Ravitch, an education historian who was invited by the national assessment’s governing board to review the results, said she was particularly disturbed by only 2 percent of 12th-graders correctly answering a question concerning Brown v. Board of Education, which she called “very likely the most important decision’’ of the US Supreme Court in the past seven decades.

Students were given an excerpt including the passage “We conclude that in the field of public education, separate but equal has no place, separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,’’ and were asked what social problem the 1954 ruling was supposed to correct.

“The answer was right in front of them,’’ Ravitch said. “This is alarming.’’

The tests were given last spring to a representative sample of 7,000 fourth-graders, 11,800 eighth-graders and 12,400 12th-graders nationwide. History is one of eight subjects — along with math, reading, science, writing, civics, geography, and economics — covered by the assessment program also known as the Nation’s Report Card.

The program defines three achievement levels for each test: “basic’’ denotes partial mastery of a subject; “proficient’’ represents solid academic performance and a demonstration of competency over challenging subject matter; and “advanced’’ means superior performance.