What Do National and State National Assessment of Educational Progress Scores Tell Us About the Achievement of American K-12 Students?

Achievement scores are a particularly good measure of the changing environment for our children, because research has linked achievement to the combined influence of families, communities, and schools. Changes in achievement scores over time must inevitably be traced to changes in the quality of the student’s families, schools, or their communities. The link between achievement and the quality of families, communities, and schools must be interpreted to include the child’s environment long before school entry-in fact, from conception-and to a broad definition of community that includes media and cultural influences and the quality of health, nutrition, and social support systems.