City schools bring home better report cards

Urban education often gets a bad rap. But since 2003, a number of large city school districts have outpaced the national average when it comes to improving their students' math and reading skills.

A snapshot of fourth- and eighth-graders released last week featured 11 districts that volunteered for a city-level comparison of scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Prior to 2002, the scores were released only on the state and national levels...