NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance in Reading and Mathematics: Findings in Brief

July 2005

Author: National Center for Education Statistics

Download the complete report in a PDF file for viewing and printing. (593K PDF)

---

Introduction

NAEP includes two components: the long-term trend assessments and the main assessments. The long-term trend component uses assessments that remain substantially unchanged each time a subject is assessed, allowing students’ progress in a subject to be measured over a long period of time. The main assessment, on the other hand, is periodically updated to reflect contemporary changes in education policies, methods, and institutions, resulting in shorter trend lines.

This report describes long-term trends in 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds’ achievement in reading and mathematics during the last three decades. In 2004, a representative sample of more than 11,000 students in public and private schools at each of the three ages participated in the long-term trend assessment in each subject area. These findings provide a look at the performance of America’s students over a period of 33 years, beginning in 1971 for reading and 1973 for mathematics.

The report summarizes trends in average scale scores for all students and for groups of students defined by gender and race/ethnicity. One additional variable for each age is also presented. For age 9, scores are broken out by percentiles; for age 13, scores are shown for students whose parents attained various levels of education; and for age 17, course-taking patterns are highlighted. These different presentations are meant to provide a snapshot of the data available in the full report. 

Results from the long-term trend and main assessment programs are not comparable because they use different questions and different samples. Students are sampled by age for the long-term trend assessments and by grade for the main assessments. There are no achievement levels in the long-term trend as there are in the main assessment, and long-term trend results are available only at the national level, while main NAEP produces results at the state and large-district level in some subjects.

A word of caution: The results presented here are meant to describe some aspects of the condition and progress of education. They are best viewed as starting points for further examination, not as final statements on the quality or effectiveness of America’s educational system. Differences in student performance between groups or assessment years may reflect a range of socioeconomic and educational factors not discussed in this report; causal inferences should not be made from those cross-sectional data. Data on sample size, significance tests, and other variables are available in the full report.

Download the complete report in a PDF file for viewing and printing. (593K PDF)

NCES 2005-463 Ordering information

Suggested Citation
National Center for Education Statistics (2005). NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance in Reading and Mathematics: Findings in Brief (NCES 2005–463). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.