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Despite progress, California schools remain mired near the bottom of the latest national assessment of students' writing ability, largely because the state has so many immigrants who learn English as a second language.
Los Angeles schools, in particular, showed sharp gains in the latest edition of the "Nation's Report Card," issued Thursday by the U.S. Department of Education. But those improvements still left the city's students far below the national average in writing abilities, at least in part because the Los Angeles Unified School District has hundreds of thousands of students who are learning English.
Los Angeles students can be grateful for the existence of Cleveland, because it was the only big city whose students scored worse overall.
"These results show us that too many of our English learners are underperforming, and we have much work ahead to close this gap," said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.
The "Nation's Report Card," the nickname given to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is conducted periodically in several subjects. Thursday's was for writing only and was based on tests conducted last year among a sampling of eighth- and 12th-graders in public and private schools nationwide.