How well does NAEP match up with the Common Core standards in mathematics?

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A special advanced release of a Brown Center report on NAEP and the Common Core standard tackled this question by analyzing NAEP items from the eighth-grade assess­ment. The full version of the 2010 Brown Center Report on American Education will be published at a later date.

NAEP items are periodically released to the public to give an idea of the content of the test. For the current study, researchers coded all public release items from the algebra and number strands based on the grade at which the Common Core recommends teaching the mathematics assessed by the item. The 2009 NAEP Framework in Math­ematics calls for number and algebra items to comprise half of the eighth-grade assess­ment. A total of 171 items were available, 98 from the number strand and 73 from algebra.

The mean fourth-grade NAEP item registered at 3.2 and the mean eighth-grade item at 3.7, suggesting that the typical item could be answered using arithmetic taught by the end of third grade. Primarily, this finding stems from NAEP’s reliance on whole number arithmetic in word problems. Researchers found that approximately 70 percent of the eighth-grade items focused on whole numbers. Problems with fractions, decimals, or percents—forms of rational numbers taught after third grade—are not common on NAEP.