A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

What Is the National Voluntary Test
and How Does It Relate to the
America Reads Challenge?

The National Voluntary Test

In alignment with the goal of the America Reads Challenge -- to ensure that all children can read well and independently by the end of the third grade -- President Clinton has also proposed a new, challenging, and voluntary national test in fourth grade reading. The test will not be just another test. It is intended to capture the public's attention and stimulate change. By showing parents and teachers where individual students stand in relation to rigorous national standards and by demonstrating the kind of work that will be essential for success in the future, students, teachers, parents, and their communities can work together to improve their schools.

The test is expected to have the following characteristics:

• The test will be voluntary. Although the decision to use it will be made by state and local authorities, President Clinton is urging every state and district to participate in the effort.

• The test will be based on the frameworks used to develop the widely accepted National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) fourth-grade reading test, which is now used in over 40 States on a sample basis. The test will be equated to the NAEP and, like the NAEP, be criterion referenced rather than norm referenced.

• The test will provide individual student scores and will be available to all students in all fourth-grade classes of participating states or districts. The NAEP, in contrast, does not produce individual scores and is given to only a sample of students in most states. Although NAEP works well for providing a state or national average, it does not tell a parent, teacher, or principal how well an individual student is doing.

• No individual student data will be received by the U.S. Department of Education. Under the l998 Appropriation Act (P.L.l05-78), the bipartisan National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) is responsible for overseeing the voluntary national tests. NAGB will also control the voluntary national test development.

• While the voluntary national tests are being developed, the National Academy of Sciences will conduct studies on testing issues and the feasibility of linking states' testing programs to NAEP. These studies will provide NAGB, the Department, and Congress with the most complete testing research available.

The Department and NAGB will make information available to help teachers, parents, and students prepare for the test. Each year, after the test has been given, the test instruments and scoring guides will be made available on the World Wide Web. Every effort will be made to report data clearly and informatively.

The Department believes that a challenging reading test that is based on high standards and produces individual scores will raise expectations systemwide and promote greater equity.

Educators will have clear benchmarks toward which they can work. In high-poverty areas, expectations often are lowest and "C"-level work often receives an "A." Parents in poor-achieving schools, whose children bring home strong report cards but have low scores on these tests, will have additional information to examine their child's progress and hold their children's schools more accountable. And the public will be better able to make sure that all young people are mastering the basics, because they will have a clear standard against which to judge success.

The goal of the America Reads Challenge is for every child to read well and independently by the end of the third grade. The reason the Secretary set the benchmark for this goal at the third grade is that children typically acquire skills within three-year developmental periods. Within a three- year period some children learn skills typical of that period by the first or second year, while others may need the full three years. When schools concentrate reading instruction during the first three grades, most children can be expected to have learned basic reading skills by the end of the third grade. Most children in the fourth grade are then able to apply their reading skills to learning their core curriculum subjects. The National Voluntary Test will assess students’ reading abilities in the fourth grade in order to help parents and educators determine the necessary interventions to help students improve their reading skills.

The America Reads Challenge will work with children from infancy through the end of third grade to prepare them to meet the high standards set by the National Voluntary Test. The America Reads Challenge seeks to improve and expand opportunities for children to learn, practice, and further develop their reading skills at home, at school, and in their communities. While remaining sensitive to the unique learning needs of each child, we must work hard to instill in all children, and in ourselves, high expectations for their reading skills.

The President's America Reads Challenge