A report released on November 10, 2014 by Child Trends Hispanic Institute based on the analysis of National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP’s, data covering the past ten years show a significant and steady growth in federal Math tests by Hispanic students. Major cities such as Houston, Charlotte, Boston and the District showed the most gains.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit research center, Child Trends Hispanic Institute indicated that the growth is about one grade level with fourth grade students’ scores going up nine points and eighth grade students’ scores going up thirteen points. NAEP’s report is also known as the Nation’s Report Card and represents the “most consistent measure of K-12 progress” in the United States.

Natalia Pane, the vice president of research operations at Child Trends who authored the report expressed surprise at her findings and said, “It’s really interesting what’s going on in the large cities. Our large cities were able to keep pace when they’ve got such higher proportions of students coming from low-income families.”