Since 1969, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been providing policymakers, educators, and the public with reports on academic performance and progress of the nation's students. The assessment is given periodically in a variety of subjects: mathematics, reading, writing, science, the arts, civics, economics, geography, U.S. history, and technology and engineering literacy. NAEP is given to representative samples of students across the U.S. to assess the educational progress of the nation as a whole. Since 1992, NAEP results have been reported in relation to three achievement levels: basic, proficient, and advanced. However, the use of achievement levels has provoked controversy and disagreement, and evaluators have identified numerous concerns. This publication evaluates the NAEP student achievement levels in reading and mathematics in grades 4, 8, and 12 to determine whether the achievement levels are reasonable, reliable, valid, and informative to the public, and recommends ways that the setting and use of achievement levels can be improved.

During its first 14 years of existence, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was located at the Education Commission of the States (ECS). This annotated bibliography of 575 references lists all major publications by or about NAEP published between 1969 and 1983. References are in a classified arrangement, by specific or special assessment. Documents not dealing with a specific assessment are grouped by: Methodological Publications; Special Analyses; and General and Miscellaneous. Materials by NAEP are separated from materials about NAEP done by external organizations. Subject, Personal Author, and Preparing Institution indexes are provided. The compilation is based on materials (documents and journal articles) archived in the database of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), and therefore most documents cited can be obtained through the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). (WTB)