The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also referred to as the Nation's Report Card, is a continuing and nationally representative assessment of student performance in several content areas including, but not limited to reading, mathematics, science, writing, and U.S.history.

NAEP is governed by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) and is administered by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) which is part of the U.S. Department of Education. Result sare confidential and results are not reported in terms of individual students. Results are reported for the state or as part of the national results.

Results from NAEP are publicly available through NCES.The NAEP Data Explorer (NDE) allows the public to analyze results at the national (grades 4, 8, and 12) and state (grades 4 and 8) level with disaggregated achievement estimates being provided based on gender, race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, limited English proficiency and several other factors. This level of reporting is made possible through sophisticated student/school sampling techniques used by NCES to represent the nationally participating jurisdictions.

The administration of NAEP is made possible through a collaborative effort between the federal government, the state, individua lschool districts, and schools. Each state has a designated NAEP coordinator who assists the federal government in the identification of schools and who facilitates communication between the federal and state governments, jurisdictions and schools. This coordinator also performs various data analyses and prepares briefings for stakeholders including the State Legislature, Board of Education, and State Department of Education.