Elementary school students have a stronger grasp of U.S. history, and what it means to be a knowledgeable citizen, than they did a few years ago, new test results suggest. Part of the reason they are better informed about history and citizenship, some argue, is that they are better readers. That was the view put forward by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, among others, who saw the hand of the No Child Left Behind Act's reading requirements in the latest results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), released last week. Debating what role, if any, those mandates are playing in improving student progress has become almost a ritual accompanying the release of test scores for the heavily scrutinized NAEP, often referred to as "the nation's report card." That ritual played out again with the latest results as some advocates for history and civics education questioned the connection between federal reading efforts and the gains in 4th grade on NAEP. Meanwhile, educators are also concerned about scores at the 8th- and 12th-grade levels, which were stagnant on the civics test.