Nation's Report Card: 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Long-Term Trends in Academic Progress

Overall Performance in Reading Declines in Comparison to 1992
Performance of the nation’s 12th-graders in reading has declined in comparison to 1992. The percentage of students performing at or above Basic decreased from 80% in 1992 to 73% in 2005, and the percentage of students performing at or above the Proficient level decreased from 40% to 35%.

Reading achievement levels at grade 12
The reading achievement levels represent what 12th-graders should know and be able to do in reading at each level. The following are excerpts of the reading achievement-level descriptions with the corresponding minimum cut scores noted in parentheses. The full descriptions can be found at http://www.nagb.org/pubs/pubs.html.
Basic (265): Twelfth-grade students performing at the Basic level should be able to demonstrate an overall understanding and make some interpretations of the text. When reading text appropriate to twelfth grade, they should be able to identify and relate aspects of the text to its overall meaning, extend the ideas in the text by making simple inferences, recognize interpretations, make connections among and relate ideas in the text to their personal experiences, and draw conclusions. They should be able to identify elements of an author’s style.
Proficient (302): Twelfth-grade students performing at the Profi cient level should be able to show an overall understanding of the text, which includes inferential as well as literal information. When reading text appropriate to twelfth grade, they should be able to extend the ideas of the text by making inferences, drawing conclusions, and making connections to their own personal experiences and other readings. Connections between inferences and the text should be clear, even when implicit. These students should be able to analyze the author’s use of literary devices.
Advanced (346): Twelfth-grade students performing at the Advanced level should be able to describe more abstract themes and ideas in the overall text. When reading text appropriate to twelfth grade, they should be able to analyze both the meaning and the form of the text and explicitly support their analyses with specific examples from the text. They should be able to extend the information from the text by relating it to their experiences and to the world. Their responses should be thorough, thoughtful, and extensive
.

Less than 25% perform at or above Proficient in mathematics.
Thirty nine percent (39%) of students nationwide performed below the Basic achievement level in 2005, and 23% performed at or above Proficient on the new 12th-grade mathematics assessment. Because of changes in assessment content and administration, the results for 2005 could not be directly compared to those from previous years.

Mathematics achievement levels at grade 12 The following mathematics achievement levels describe what 12th-graders should know and be able to do in mathematics at each level. The cut score indicating the lower end of the score range for each level is noted in parentheses.
Basic (141): Twelfth-grade students performing at the Basic level should be able to solve mathematical problems that require the direct application of concepts and procedures in familiar situations. For example, they should be able to perform computations with real numbers and estimate the results of numerical calculations. These students should also be able to estimate, calculate, and compare measures and identify and compare properties of two- and three-dimensional fi gures, and solve simple problems using two-dimensional coordinate geometry. At this level, students should be able to identify the source of bias in a sample and make inferences from sample results, calculate, interpret, and use measures of central tendency and compute simple probabilities. They should understand the use of variables, expressions, and equations to represent unknown quantities and relationships among unknown quantities. They should be able to solve problems involving linear relations using tables, graphs, or symbols; and solve linear equations involving one variable.
Proficient (176): Students in the twelfth grade performing at the Proficient level should be able to select strategies to solve problems and integrate concepts and procedures. These students should be able to interpret an argument, justify a mathematical process, and make comparisons dealing with a wide variety of mathematical tasks. They should also be able to perform calculations involving similar fi gures including right triangle trigonometry. They should understand and apply properties of geometric figures and relationships between fi gures in two and three dimensions. Students at this level should select and use appropriate units of measure as they apply formulas to solve problems. Students performing at this level should be able to use measures of central tendency and variability of distributions to make decisions and predictions; calculate combinations and permutations to solve problems, and understand the use of the normal distribution to describe real-world situations. Students performing at the Proficient level should be able to identify, manipulate, graph, and apply linear, quadratic, exponential, and inverse proportionality (y = k/x) functions; solve routine and non-routine problems involving functions expressed in algebraic, verbal, tabular, and graphical forms; and solve quadratic and rational equations in one variable and solve systems of linear equations.