On Tuesday, the state of California released the findings of the 2008 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program, which provides national norm-reference test results. 

Statewide, students showed improvement in reading, writing, as well as mathematics this year. 45.8 percent of them scored at the highest level in language arts, with more than 3 percent from previous year. In arithmetic, it was 42.7 percent, up 2 percent from previous year, the results disclosed.

However, there is also a bad news. According to Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, the education of Afro-American undergraduates is currently experiencing a deadlock. While white and Asian American students scored much better, black students' ability to speak English was similar, by and large, to Latino students’ one (many of whom are just learning the English grammar and vocabulary), O’Connell asserted after looking at the results.

"I am acutely concerned about our African American students," he said. The situation points toward “a crisis in the education of black students.”

In the California Standards Test (CST), the performances of approximately 4.8 million students in grades 2 through 11 were assessed. Black students represent an estimated 8 percent of the participants. Debra Watkins, president of the California Alliance of African American Educators, said that many African American people have been "almost passive" regarding the educational crisis.

"We have to look at proficiency for all," stated Ramon C. Cortines, Chair of the Visiting Committee for the Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey and member of the Advisory Board for the Center for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Education of the National Research Council, who condemned the scale's steepness and rigidity.