To fulfill the mandates of the State Legislature, a battery of national and statewide standardized norm-referenced tests has been administered in the spring of each year to North Carolina's students in grades 3, 6, and 8 to measure skills in reading, language, mathematics, science, and social studies. This report presents summary results of student performance from the spring of 1986 through spring 1992. In 1992, the average third-, sixth-, and eighth-grade student in North Carolina scored higher than the average student in the national norm groups for the California Achievement Test for reading, language, and mathematics. On the average, students taking the 60-item North Carolina Science and North Carolina Social Studies tests in 1992 correctly answered 2 to 3 more items correctly than did students taking the 1988 tests, and average student performance in 1992 exceeded that of 1988 and 1990. New tests to be implemented in 1993 will continue to assess student performance in these basic skills, but will greatly expand the measurement of higher-order cognitive processes. Nine figures, 6 illustrations, and 32 tables present test results. Appendixes A, B, and C contain 104 summary reports for the state and region. Appendix D discusses selecting a measure of central tendency, and Appendix E provides definitions of measurement terms. (SLD)