Former Principal

nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas. Since 1969, assessments have been conducted periodically in reading, mathematics, science, writing, history, geography, and other fields. By making objective information on student performance available to policymakers at the national, state, and local levels, NAEP is an integral part of our nation’s evaluation of the condition and progress of education. Only information related to academic achievement is collected under this program. NAEP guarantees the privacy of schools, individual students, and their families. NAEP is a congressionally mandated project of the National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. The Commissioner of Education Statistics is responsible, by law, for carrying out the NAEP project through competitive awards to qualified organizations. In 1988, Congress established the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to oversee and set policy for NAEP. The Board is responsible for: selecting the subject areas to be assessed; setting appropriate student achievement levels; developing assessment objectives and test specifications; developing a process for the review of the assessment; designing the assessment methodology; developin