The Nation’s Report Card

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often called “the nation’s report card,” began in 1964 with a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to set up the Exploratory Committee for the Assessment of Progress in Education.   Today, it is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history. NAEP expects to includes assessments in world history and in foreign language beginning in 2012.  As NAEP explains, its results “ are based on representative samples of students at grades 4, 8, and 12 for the main assessments, or samples of students at ages 9, 13, or 17 years for the long-term trend assessments. These grades and ages were chosen because they represent critical junctures in academic achievement.”  Describing the development of its work, NAEP reports, “The first national assessments were held in 1969. Voluntary assessments for the states began in 1990 on a trial basis, and in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007, selected urban districts participated in the assessment on a trial basis.”