The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) gathers information about national levels of education achievement that helps explain and interpret other research, policy efforts, and the phenomena of unanticipated changes in American education. (Author) Primary type of information provided by report: Program Description (Program Goals)…

Discusses the findings (and implications) from the 1985 national assessment of American students' knowledge of history and literature funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The average score of 11th graders on history was 55 percent and on literature 52 percent. (MD)

Looks at four sources for measuring national student performance: (1) the National Assessment of Educational Progress study of basic skills; (2) competency testing in reading, writing, and arithmetic; (3) college entrance examination scores; and (4) rates of educational attainment by sex, race, ability level, and socioeconomic status. (SK)

Past research on the effects of Minimum Competency Tests (MCT) on teaching and learning is reviewed, and the large database of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is used to shed more light on these effects. There seems to be little doubt that MCT, together with associated changes in instructional methods, has produced some…

The relationship between school-level minimum competency testing (MCT) programs and student reading proficiency measured by the 1983-84 National Assessment of Educational Progress was studied in subsamples of 10,367 fourth graders, 10,829 eighth graders, and 13,513 eleventh graders. No advantages of MCT programs were seen in grade 4. (SLD)

This report provides a record of student achievement for the State of New York in the 1984-85 school year. It brings together a variety of achievement indicators with a clear focus on knowledge and higher-order skills. Three types of achievement data are presented. One consists of scores obtained on New York State (NYS) tests. These scores may be…

Most other nations have a very different approach to measuring academic achievement at the end of high school and signaling that information to universities and other interested parties. In Australia, Denmark, England, Scotland, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and many Canadian and German provinces, for example, high school exit…

In this article, the authors describe various rationales for accountability testing programs over the past century. This history forms the backdrop for current test-driven reforms, including Public Law 107-110, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which was signed into law in January 2002. The goals of the authors are first, to illustrate…