Cram schools have popped up to help students prepare for the combined math, reading and essay test required for admission.
Ms. Gigee ticks off the battery of state tests to which the district's eighth graders are already subjected — including in math, reading, social studies and science.
It draws on data from the Program for International Student Assessment, which periodically tests 15-year-old students in more than 50 countries in math, reading or science.
It became the standard testing system for the periodic "Report Cards" exams in math, reading, history and science given to 4th, 8th and 12th graders throughout the country.
When Agassi Prep opened in August 2001, none of the 150 children enrolled were at grade level in math, reading or writing.
They spend four hours a day, four days a week, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work on basic math, reading and English skills.
According to Riordan, disadvantaged students at single-sex schools have higher scores on standardized math, reading, science and civics tests than their counterparts in coed schools.
It ranks students on a numerical scale as having either advanced, proficient, basic or below-basic skills in math, reading and a variety of other subjects.
But Mr. Hayden stressed that those projects would require just as firm a grasp of math, reading and science skills as the Regents exams did.
Mr. Schleicher based many of his international comparisons on data from the O.E.C.D. Program for International Student Assessment, which tests students in scores of countries every three years in math, reading or science.
History is one of eight subjects — the others are math, reading, science, writing, civics, geography and economics — covered by the assessment program, which is also known as the Nation's Report Card.
