It has been proposed that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) increase its efforts to gather and analyze data on student background, teachers, households, and schools. Adoption of this proposal would result in the inclusion in NAEP of additional background variables and subpopulations, to be defined by states. NAEP specification…

The recent examination of the curriculum and examination systems of France and the Netherlands overlooks the real process of creating a national consensus around standards in the Netherlands, balancing local autonomy and national standards. A comment by the original authors acknowledges the implications of the Dutch approach for U.S. standards.…

The original National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been criticized for its limited ability to provide information that is useful at a variety of levels. As a result, Congress authorized a voluntary NAEP Trial State Assessment Program for the assessment of mathematics at grade 8 in 1990, reading at grade 4 in 1992, and mathematics…

Four national educational reform initiatives (national goals for schools, core curriculum, national student examination system, and teacher certification processes) are examined and policy implications discussed. It is argued that, although these initiatives are progressing, they will not succeed without sustained commitment on the parts of the…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is compared to the two studies of the National Educational Longitudinal Studies (NELS) Program--the National Longitudinal Study of the Class of 1972 (resurveyed in 1973, 1974, 1976, and 1979) and the 1980 High School and Beyond study (partially resurveyed and retested in 1982). The third phase…