Nevada high school students did better than the national average on this year's American College Testing program college-entry exams.
Nevada's composite average for the test was 21.2, compared with 20.9 nationally.
Scores are from the 5,282 students - 33.4 percent of the class - who took the exams this year.
But Department of Education officials said the discouraging statistic is that fewer Nevada students are taking the college entry exams. The percentage was 33.9 percent this year and 36.3 percent in 2002.
Superintendent of Education Keith Rheault said that is partly offset by increased participation in the college board's SAT examination. Those results for the state will be released at the end of this month.
"The drop in participation needs to be followed closely," said Rheault. "It is promising, however, that Nevada's average performance exceeded the average performance among states that had similar participation rates."
He also pointed out that while Nevada minority students who took the test continue to score lower on average than the Caucasian group, they did score better than their peers at the national level.
The ACT measures achievement in four areas: English, math, reading and science. Nevada students were at the national average in English, but performed slightly better than the national average in the other three areas.
