New York State's school kids are not great at the science, it seems. The results of last year's National Assessment of Educational Progress science exam are out and New York kids scored an average 149 (out of 300), about the same as they scored in 2009 and two points below the national average [PDF]. And it gets more depressing. How bad are we talking? A disturbing 46 percent of those eighth graders tested didn't know how much hydrogen and oxygen is in a molecule of H2O.
Thirty-one percent of those tested thought that water was made of two oxygen atoms and one hydrogen atom while 14 percent thought water was equal parts oxygen and hydrogen. We guess we can understand the confusion, but still: Sigh. Still, if it makes you feel any better about the state of our youth, the same percentage of students got the question wrong nationally too.
One nice thing in the results, however, was the fact that boys and girls had scores roughly on par in New York State (stats on NYC are not available), while boys outperformed girls on the test nationally. Still, we aren't exactly sure what it means when 29 percent of New York students performed "proficiently" on the national exam when, according to last year's state-issued science tests, 72 percent of them were deemed proficient. Maybe science in New York is a just different from everywhere else?
