Expand NAEP to a census
Test every student in grades 4, 8, and 12—not only samples—so families receive honest, nationally comparable results from a secure, independent system already trusted as the Nation’s Report Card.
Solutions
Policy reforms that restore honest measurement
Independent national testing agency
Modeled on professional licensing and college entrance exams: independent development, security, administration, and reporting—outside the control of the educators being evaluated.
Hard rules that matter
By statute: no educator access to items before administration; no year-after-year reuse without replacement; no selling of prep materials that include live content.
Reform 1: Expand NAEP
NAEP already has security infrastructure and independence. Expanding from a sample survey to a census in key grades gives parents, for the first time, an honest benchmark for their own children—not only system averages.
The marginal cost of expansion is far more defensible than continued spending on commercial systems that systematically inflate.
Reform 2: Independent agency
High-performing PISA nations do not let the same people design, administer, and score the exams that grade their own performance. The United States should not either.
An independent agency would develop items, maintain security, use independent contractors for administration, and report results directly to parents and the public.
Who benefits
- Parents — truthful information about their child’s learning.
- Taxpayers — accountability for real outcomes, not paper gains.
- School choice supporters — markets that function on honest signals.
- Equity advocates — clear identification of which students and schools are being left behind.
These reforms do not favor a curriculum, a pedagogy, or a party. They require only that the instrument used to measure learning actually measures learning.
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