What Is NAEP?

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a congressionally mandated project of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. It assesses what U.S. students should know and be able to do in geography, reading, writing, mathematics, science, U.S. history, the arts, civics, and other academic subjects. Since 1969, NAEP has surveyed the achievement of students at ages 9, 13, and 17 and, since the 1980s, in grades 4, 8, and 12. Measuring educational achievement trends over time is critical to measuring progress toward the National Education Goals.

The National Assessment Governing Board

The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) was created by Congress to formulate policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Among the Board’s responsibilities are developing objectives and test specifications, and designing the assessment methodology for NAEP.

Darvin M. Winick, Chair
President
Winick and Associates
Dickinson, Texas

Honorable Jo Ann Pottorff, Vice Chair
State Legislator
Topeka, Kansas

Amanda Avallone
Eighth-Grade Teacher
Boulder, Colorado

Barbara Byrd-Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
Cleveland Municipal School District
Cleveland, Ohio

Carl Cohn
Clinical Professor
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California

Shirley Dickson
Educational Consultant
Laguna Niguel, California

Edward Donley
Former Chair
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.
Allentown, Pennsylvania

John Q. Easton
Executive Director
Consortium on Chicago School Research
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

Honorable Dwight Evans
State Legislator
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Sheila Ford
Elementary School Principal
Washington, D.C.

David W. Gordon
County Superintendent of Schools
Sacramento County Office of Education
Sacramento, California

Juanita Haugen
Local School Board President
Pleasanton, California

Henry L. Johnson
Superintendent of Education
Mississippi Department of Education
Jackson, Mississippi

Kathi M. King
Twelfth-Grade Teacher
Oakland, Maine

Kim Kozbial-Hess
Fourth-Grade Teacher
Toledo, Ohio

Honorable Ronnie Musgrove
Former Governor of Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi

Diane Ravitch
Senior Research Scholar
New York, New York

Mark Reckase
Professor
Measurement & Quantitative Methods
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan

Sister Lourdes M. Sheehan
Associate General Secretary
United States Catholic Conference
Washington, D.C.

John H. Stevens
Executive Director
Texas Business and Education Coalition
Austin, Texas

Honorable Michael E. Ward
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
North Carolina Public Schools
Raleigh, North Carolina

Eileen L. Weiser
Member, State Board of Education
Michigan Department of Education
Lansing, Michigan

Dennie Palmer Wolf
Director, Opportunity & Accountability Initiatives
Annenberg Institute for School Reform
Providence, Rhode Island

Grover (Russ) Whitehurst
(Ex-Officio) Director
Institute of Education Sciences
U.S. Department of Education
Washington, D.C.