Board Plunges into Thorny Issue Of Revising NAEP Reading Outline

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Alexandria, Va.

Two groups of reading and assessment experts offered divergent proposals last week for retooling the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading. One pushes for improvements to the current framework that guides what is on the test, while the other recommends a dramatic shift in how students' proficiency in the subject is gauged.

In presentations here to a committee of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP, the groups outlined in competing issues papers the types of changes they believe are necessary to bring the test into better alignment with the latest research in the field, as well as state standards.

The governing board hired a contractor last month to design the reading framework that will guide development of test questions, beginning with its 2007 administration. For the first time, the contract does not require that future tests yield results comparable with those...