H.S. Reformers Seize on NAEP Scores to Help Make Case

Advocates want to step up NCLB accountability at secondary level.

High school reform advocates are using long-term-trend data from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress to argue that reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act should step up accountability for high schools.

“We think that high school reform has not been brought to scale. There hasn’t been a dedicated focus on improving high school skills over time,” Lyndsay M. Pinkus, the director of strategic initiatives for the Washington-based Alliance for Excellent Education, said last week. She believes provisions pertaining to high schools in the 7-year-old federal law need to be expanded and improved.

Trend data from NAEP released late last month show that average scores for 9- and 13-year-olds in both reading and mathematics have risen significantly since the assessment was first given in the early 1970s, while the average scores for 17-year-olds in those...