Since its inception more than four decades ago, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has served as a key indicator of what the nation's students know and can do in academic subjects. NAEP assessments provide a mechanism for putting the achievements of students in all states on a common scale; the assessments also serve as…

Increasingly over the past decade there have appeared in the press bar graphs comparing the performance of U.S. students with their counterparts in other countries. Usually these graphs have been accompanied by dire warnings and pointing fingers. The main source of the data on international comparisons has been the International Association for…