As an initial review of National Assessment of Educational Progress data designed to determine whether the achievement of American youth is improving, a limited examination of changes in levels of achievement during the 1970s is presented. Benchmark assessments established in 1974-75 indicates a large degree of consistency from one learning area…

The differential performance of black and white college freshmen on a direct measure of writing skills, the essay portion of the American College Testing Program's Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP), was studied. The data consisted of responses of a sample of 998 black and 3,727 white examinees to two individual prompts for…