National Assessment of Educational Progress is a government program designed to evaluate the quality and progress of education in the United States. It is sometimes referred to as NAEP or “the Nation’s Report Card.” The program was created by Congress in 1964. It is directed and funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. NAEP conducted its first evaluation in 1969. Since then, it has issued hundreds of reports.
The program’s staff surveys students at three age and grade levels: 9-year-olds and 4th-graders, 13-year-olds and 8th-graders, and 17-year-olds and 12th-graders. The assessment presents profiles based on nationally representative samples of these students. The tests eventually will cover 12 subject areas—the arts, civics, economics, foreign language. geography, world history, United States history, mathematics, reading, science, technology and engineering literacy, and writing. Educational Testing Service, a private, nonprofit corporation, works with the Department of Education to design and administer NAEP.
