Date: Sept. 24, 1998
Contacts: Dan Quinn, Media Relations Officer
Kristen Nye, Media Relations Assistant
(202) 334-2138; e-mail <news@nas.edu>

Publication Announcement

Nation's 'Report Card' Should Be Changed
To Provide More Complete Picture of U.S. Education

For nearly 30 years, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has provided the only continuing measure of American student achievement. Its uses have expanded greatly in recent years. Currently, educators and policy-makers seek to use scores from NAEP to justify education reform, to check the results of state tests and other testing programs, and to compare student achievement among states and other countries.

To satisfy these demands, the NAEP program has taken on new and sometimes conflicting objectives, without changing the assessment's basic features. As a result, it has become overly complex, says a new congressionally mandated report from a committee of the National Research Council. The report recommends ways to refocus and streamline NAEP over the next decade.

To meet the need for better information about why students perform as they do, NAEP should be linked with other educational data so that test results are just one in a series of measurements which, taken together, provide a broad view of trends in education. The U.S. Department of Education should integrate NAEP data with information on classroom practices, teacher preparation, educational resources, academic standards, and other factors. Such data would enable users to better understand NAEP results and their potential implications for educational policy.

The department should streamline NAEP by reducing the number of separate surveys that are currently used to measure short- and long-term trends. It also should change the ways in which NAEP measures student achievement. The current system -- which relies largely on tests with paper and pencil -- should be augmented with new alternative assessment methods, including portfolios and other samples of student performance, computer-based analyses of student work, and videotaped observations of students working in the classroom. Such methods are needed to assess the kinds of investigative, problem-solving, communication, and technological skills that will be necessary in the students' future. And these assessment methods will help the department increase the participation in NAEP of students with special learning and language needs, a population that has been neglected in the past.

The National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP, should overhaul the way they develop the standards against which students' scores are compared. Such standards allow administrators to determine how many students are at or above basic, proficient, or advanced levels of performance. The current system for developing these standards is too complex and has been inconsistently applied, leading to results that are implausible when compared to other testing information, the report says.

A committee roster follows. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The National Research Council -- the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering -- is a private, non-profit organization that provides advice on science and technology.

Read the full text of Grading the Nation's Report Card: Evaluating NAEP and Transforming the Assessment of Educational Progress are available at www.nap.edu or by calling 202-334-3313  or 1-800-624-6242.  Reporters may obtain a pre-publication copy from the Office of News and Public Information at the letterhead address (contacts listed above).


NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
Board on Testing and Assessment

Committee on the Evaluation of National and State Assessments of Educational Progress
James W. Pellegrino (chair)
Dean
Peabody College of Education and Human Development; and
Frank W. Mayborn Professor of Cognitive Studies
Learning Technology Center
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tenn.

Gail Baxter
Research Scientist
Educational Testing Service
Princeton, N.J.

Norman M. Bradburn
Senior Vice President for Research
National Opinion Research Center
University of Chicago

Thomas P. Carpenter
Professor of Curriculum and Instruction
University of Wisconsin
Madison

Allan Collins
Principal Scientist
Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.
Cambridge, Mass.

Pasquale J. Devito
Director, Office of Assessment and Information Services
Rhode Island Department of Education
Providence

Stephen B. Dunbar
Professor of Educational Measurement and Statistics
College of Education
University of Iowa
Iowa City

Larry V. Hedges
Stella M. Rowley Professor of Education and the Social Sciences
Department of Education
University of Chicago

Sharon Lewis
Director of Research
Council of the Great City Schools
Washington, D.C.

Roderick J.A. Little
Professor and Chairman
Department of Biostatistics
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor

Elsie G.J. Moore
Associate Professor and Academic Program Coordinator
Life-Span Developmental Psychology
College of Education
Arizona State University
Tempe

Nambury S. Reju
Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Research and Service
Institute of Psychology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago

Marlene Scardamalia
Head
Centre for Applied Cognitive Science; and
Professor
Department of Measurement, Evaluation, and Computer Applications
CACS/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Toronto

Guadalupe Valdes
Professor
School of Education and Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Stanford University
Palo Alto, Calif.

Sheila W. Valencia
Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction
Literacy Education
College of Education
University of Washington
Seattle

Lauress L. Wise
President
Human Resources Research Organization
Alexandria, Va.

RESEARCHCOUNCIL STAFF

Lee R. Jones
Study Director