The National Assessment is a plan for a systematic survey of knowledges, skills, understandings, and attitudes. The development of citizenship assessment described in this paper typifies the processes undergone for each subject--art, career and occupational development, citizenship, literature, mathematics, music, reading, science, social studies, and writing. Of the following developmental components, emphasis has been placed on the first five, although the last two are now receiving greater attention: 1) development of objectives with the participation of educators and laymen; 2) development of exercises based on the objectives and representing various techniques and levels of difficulty; 3) determination of a probability population sample representing region, size of community, and socioeconomic status; 4) administration of the exercises to the sample of 9-, 13-, and 17-year olds and an adult group aged 26-35; 5) scoring and analysis of the exercises by machine and trained evaluators; 6) reporting and dissemination; and 7) utilization. Components 6 and 7 describe the census-like reporting of data without interpretation. National Assessment produced data based on a broad range of objectives from higher cognitive levels to the affective domain and not simply on factual knowledge. (JH) Aspect of National Assessment (NAEP) dealt with in this document: Program Description.