The Huffington Post – Rebecca Klein
“Bad news for America’s schools: Student achievement in math and reading is on the decline, according to National Assessment of Education Progress scores released Wednesday. The National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP — called the Nation’s Report Card — is an exam given to fourth-grade and eighth-grade students throughout the country by the National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education. While students’ scores have increased overall since the 1990s, results released Wednesday show a slight decline between 2013 and 2015. NAEP is the “largest continuing and nationally representative assessment” of America’s students, and has been referred to as the “gold standard” of student assessment. Only 36 percent of fourth-grade students and 34 percent of eighth-grade students in 2015 scored high enough to be considered proficient or above in reading. In math, 40 percent of fourth-grade students and 33 percent of eighth-grade students scored proficient or above.”(more)