To the Editor:

Beginning in 2001, all Illinois high school juniors were required to take the Prairie State Achievement Examination, which measures student achievement in reading, math, science, writing and social science. After 2004, social science was dropped from the test.

I guess that you can say that there is both good and bad news in the 2012 results. The bad news is that 49.3 percent of students failed to meet minimum standards in reading. The good news is that the scores were not even worse. What is extremely discouraging about the scores is that the students scored better in math and science than they did in reading.