New York City students outperformed their peers in other cities on reading and mathematics tests, and the city made significant progress in narrowing the gap in scores between black and Hispanic students and white students, according to fourth- and eighth-grade results released yesterday by the federal government.

On the test – the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the nation’s report card on education – in fourth-grade reading the average difference in score between black and white students shrank by 10 points. New York ranked first among 11 cities nationwide in reading by students receiving free or reduced-price lunches, a common proxy for poverty.

The schools chancellor, Joel Klein, called yesterday’s results “further proof that we are on the right path.”

The news wasn’t all positive, though, especially compared to the gains on state tests that Mr. Klein and Mayor Bloomberg touted before the election as evidence that their sweeping education reforms were putting city schools on track after Mr. Bloomberg won mayoral control of the schools in 2002.

Yesterday’s scores prompted some educational analysts to repeat earlier criticisms that the improvements shown by New York City schoolchildren represent easier state tests rather than actual progress in student learning.

The largest gain was on the fourth grade math score, with the proportion of students scoring at the proficient level increasing five percentage points, to 26%, since 2003 when the test was last given.

On the state test, 77.4% of the fourth-graders were judged “proficient” in math. Mr. Klein said the state and national tests are structured differently and are thus difficult to compare.

The chairwoman of the City Council Committee on Education, Eva Moskowitz, said the test results indicate “major grade inflation” on the state level. The same accusations were lodged when the state scores were released last month.

While Mayor Bloomberg counts education improvements among his top achievements, some critics yesterday were once again casting a skeptical eye.

“There has been almost no success in increasing the number of kids who are proficient and advanced, and that is the desired goal,” the director of the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning at New York University’s School of Education, Robert Tobias, said.

“It seems very clear from these data that the proficient standards established by the NAEP is significantly higher than the standards set by the state tests,” he said. “This doesn’t add any more evidence to the efficacy of the reforms.”

The NAEP test is administered to large samples of students in fourth and eighth grades as a means of comparing educational achievement nationally. The student scores are divided into four categories: below basic, basic, proficient and advanced.

In fourth and eighth grade, only 18% of New York City students are reading at a proficient level.

According to the national tests, about 40% of New York City students have reading skills below their grade level.

An educational historian at New York University, Diane Ravitch, who has been critical of Messrs. Bloomberg and Klein, said the NAEP results were a mixed bag.

“The Department of Education should start focusing on eighth grade and why the scores are not moving up,” she said.

Despite the narrowing of the gap, she said that it was “startling” that about half of blacks and Hispanics students in New York were scoring at the “below basic” level.

She said that she wasn’t surprised about the discrepancy between the state and national tests and that only five states score at the same level on their state and national tests – Missouri, Maine, Wyoming, and South Carolina.

A Manhattan Institute scholar who specializes in education issues, Sol Stern, said the chancellor was “blowing smoke.”

“Klein continues to distort the data to make it look like his interventions are really working,” Mr. Stern said.

This year’s report card surveyed the reading and math skills of 1,100 to 2,400 fourth and eighth graders in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, New York City and San Diego.

“The importance of these test scores is the trends they point out,” the president of the United Federation of Teacher, Randi Weingarten, said. “Any other way of looking at them gets you embroiled in the debate about what is more accurate – the NAEP scores with those modest gains, or the state tests with rosier gains.” She said the results showed fourth graders were improving but eighth graders still need help.

The president of The Center for Educational Innovation – Public Education Association, Seymour Fliegel, said it was difficult to compare state and national tests.

“Kids take the state test seriously and they are told the NAEP test doesn’t count,” he said. “We should not look at the NAEP as the God of all testing and that all others don’t work.”