Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has been appointed to a four-year term on the National Assessment Governing Board by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. The board sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), sometimes referred to as "The Nation's Report Card."

The 26-member panel includes a bipartisan group of governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators, business representatives and other citizens. While members are chosen by the secretary of education, the board remains independent of the department.

"Gov. Sebelius brings a zest for educational excellence to the board," Secretary Spellings said. "As she has said, when it comes to education and Kansas' future, simply doing better isn't good enough."

NAEP is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what American students know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography and U.S. history.

The governing board's responsibilities include:

• Selecting subject areas to be assessed.
• Setting appropriate student achievement levels.
• Developing assessment objectives and test specifications.
• Developing a process for the review of the assessment.
• Designing the assessment methodology.
• Developing guidelines for reporting NAEP results.
• Developing standards and procedures for interstate, regional and national comparisons.
• Determining the appropriateness of all assessment items and ensuring the assessment items are free from bias and are secular, neutral, and non-ideological. And,
• Taking actions to improve the form, content, use, and reporting of results of the national assessment.

For more information on NAEP, see http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/#overview. For details on the board, visit http://www.nagb.org/.

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