Newark's 60,000 students have traditionally lagged behind the rest of the state in a variety of categories.

Black students still lag behind white classmates in virtually every category from reading scores to graduation rates.

When students are lagging, teachers give them extra help or get their parents involved.

Low-income students still lag far behind their affluent counterparts.

At the same time, there is pressure to close an achievement gap in which lower-income students in Connecticut are lagging on state test results.

For one thing, students in the United States still lag those of many industrialized countries in both math and science.

I have seen many Hispanic students continually lag behind other students because of bilingual education.

Studies have also shown that American students have lagged behind their foreign counterparts in academic achievement.

In both subjects American students lagged well behind those in the other two countries.

But black and Hispanic students still lag far behind white students, of whom 73.6 percent met the fourth-grade reading standards this year.