Writing education statistics from the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show how U.S. eighth- and twelfth-grade writing performance varied across achievement levels, student groups, school settings, and the score distribution. In both grades, 24% of students performed at the Proficient level, while average scale scores were 150. The results below describe the United States assessment period reported by The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2011 and NCES Digest Table 224.60.
Table of contents
- Achievement levels in 2011
- Average writing scores by grade
- Differences by family economic status
- Gender and racial or ethnic group results
- Parent education and attitudes toward writing
- Technology use and school community
- The shape of the score distribution
Achievement levels in 2011
The 2011 NAEP writing results used achievement levels to describe how students performed against the assessment framework. These levels are not percentages of writing produced or rates of course completion; they are the reported shares of students reaching particular performance categories.
At the Proficient level, 24% of eighth-graders and 24% of twelfth-graders performed at that level in 2011. The matching share in both grades makes Proficient the same-sized reported group for eighth and twelfth grade, although the other achievement categories were not identical.
At or above Basic, 54% of eighth-graders and 52% of twelfth-graders met the reported threshold. That means the eighth-grade share was 54% and the twelfth-grade share was 52% in the national 2011 assessment. The Basic category should be read as an achievement-level result, not as an average score.
Below Basic, 20% of eighth-graders and 21% of twelfth-graders were reported. The Advanced level included 3% of students in both grades. Together, these figures describe several points in the achievement-level distribution:
| 2011 NAEP writing result | Grade 8 | Grade 12 |
|---|---|---|
| At or above Basic | 54% | 52% |
| Proficient | 24% | 24% |
| Below Basic | 20% | 21% |
| Advanced | 3% | 3% |
Source: [The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2011]. The supplied record provides the source title but no direct URL.
These categories should not be added together as if they were separate, non-overlapping groups. “At or above Basic” includes students at higher achievement levels, while Proficient and Advanced identify narrower portions of the distribution. The useful comparison is therefore the reported share for each named threshold or level.
Average writing scores by grade
The average NAEP writing scale score for all eighth-graders was 150 in 2011. The average for all twelfth-graders was also 150. These are scale-score averages, so the equal values do not mean that every student in the two grades performed identically or that the distributions had the same spread.
The overall results provide a reference point for reading the subgroup figures in NCES Digest Table 224.60. A subgroup score above 150 was higher than the reported overall average for its grade, while a subgroup score below 150 was lower than that reference point. The table below places the all-student results beside the two reported grade levels.
| Population | Grade 8 average | Grade 12 average |
|---|---|---|
| All students | 150 | 150 |
| Eligible for free or reduced-price lunch | 134 | 133 |
| Not eligible for free or reduced-price lunch | 161 | 157 |
| Male students | 140 | 143 |
| Female students | 160 | 157 |
Source: [NCES Digest Table 224.60]. The supplied record provides the source label but no direct URL.
The reported averages also show that the direction of a grade comparison can depend on the student group. For example, the average for students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch was 134 in grade 8 and 133 in grade 12. For students not eligible, the corresponding averages were 161 and 157. The all-student average remained 150 for both grades.
Differences by family economic status
The free-or-reduced-price-lunch figures show two distinct 2011 comparisons. Within eighth grade, students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch averaged 134, while students not eligible averaged 161. Within twelfth grade, the corresponding averages were 133 and 157.
The two eligibility groups therefore had different reported average scale scores in each grade. The figures are descriptive results from the assessment and do not, by themselves, establish why the groups differed. The dataset does not provide a causal analysis, additional years, or a measure of change after 2011.
The same pattern can be stated without treating the averages as individual predictions: the reported average for eligible eighth-graders was 134, and the reported average for eligible twelfth-graders was 133. For students not eligible, the reported averages were 161 in eighth grade and 157 in twelfth grade. All four values come from NCES Digest Table 224.60 and refer to the 2011 NAEP writing assessment.
The economic-status comparison is also distinct from the achievement-level percentages. The achievement-level results describe shares of students at Basic, Proficient, Advanced, or below Basic. The lunch-eligibility results describe average scale scores for two reported groups. One set cannot be used to reconstruct the other from the supplied figures.
Gender and racial or ethnic group results
Gender-group averages in the 2011 NCES table were 140 for male eighth-graders and 143 for male twelfth-graders. Female eighth-graders averaged 160, while female twelfth-graders averaged 157. The grade-specific values make it possible to compare groups within each grade without treating the two grades as the same student cohort.
The reported racial or ethnic group averages also varied. White students averaged 158 in grade 8 and 159 in grade 12. Black students averaged 132 in grade 8 and 130 in grade 12. Hispanic students averaged 136 in grade 8 and 134 in grade 12.
Asian/Pacific Islander students averaged 163 in grade 8 and 158 in grade 12. The table separately reported Asian students at 165 in grade 8 and 158 in grade 12. Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students averaged 141 in grade 8 and 144 in grade 12. American Indian/Alaska Native students averaged 145 in both grades.
Students of two or more races averaged 155 in grade 8 and 158 in grade 12. These categories are reported as named in NCES Digest Table 224.60. Because the supplied figures include both an Asian/Pacific Islander category and a separate Asian category, they should not be silently merged or treated as interchangeable.
| Reported group | Grade 8 | Grade 12 |
|---|---|---|
| White | 158 | 159 |
| Black | 132 | 130 |
| Hispanic | 136 | 134 |
| Asian/Pacific Islander | 163 | 158 |
| Asian | 165 | 158 |
| Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander | 141 | 144 |
| American Indian/Alaska Native | 145 | 145 |
| Two or more races | 155 | 158 |
Source: [NCES Digest Table 224.60]. These are 2011 assessment averages, not current estimates or forecasts.
Parent education and attitudes toward writing
Parent education was associated with different reported average writing scores in both grades. Students whose parents did not finish high school averaged 133 in grade 8 and 129 in grade 12. Students whose parents graduated high school averaged 138 in both grades.
For students whose parents had some education after high school, the averages were 150 in grade 8 and 149 in grade 12. Students whose parents graduated college averaged 160 in both grades. These values are descriptive subgroup averages from the 2011 NCES table; they do not quantify the effect of parental education or establish a causal relationship.
Student attitudes supplied another comparison. Students who agreed or strongly agreed that writing was one of their favorite activities averaged 157 in grade 8 and 157 in grade 12. This is a subgroup defined by a reported attitude, not a statistic for every student who completed the assessment.
The parent-education and attitude figures answer different questions. Parent education identifies a background characteristic, while the favorite-activity result identifies students who selected a particular response about writing. Neither result should be used to infer how many students held the attitude, because the supplied data report the subgroup average score rather than the subgroup’s size.
Technology use and school community
The supplied NCES result for computer use focuses on students who used a computer for writing school assignments once or twice a week. That group averaged 157 in grade 8 and 154 in grade 12. The frequency is part of the definition of the group: the result does not describe all computer users, daily users, or students who never used a computer for writing assignments.
School community results were reported for city, suburban, town, and rural schools. City-school students averaged 144 in grade 8 and 146 in grade 12. Suburban-school students averaged 155 in grade 8 and 154 in grade 12.
Town-school students averaged 148 in grade 8 and 149 in grade 12. Rural-school students averaged 150 in grade 8 and 149 in grade 12. These are school-location categories in the 2011 assessment, not measures of the quality of individual schools or writing programs.
| School setting | Grade 8 average | Grade 12 average |
|---|---|---|
| City | 144 | 146 |
| Suburban | 155 | 154 |
| Town | 148 | 149 |
| Rural | 150 | 149 |
Source: [NCES Digest Table 224.60].
The school-setting figures can be read alongside the all-student average of 150, but they should not be interpreted as a ranking of communities. The supplied data provide average scores by location category and do not provide enrollment counts, school resources, instructional practices, or explanations for the differences.
The shape of the score distribution
Percentiles add information that an average cannot show by itself. In the 2011 NCES Digest Table 224.60 results, the 10th-percentile writing score was 104 for eighth-graders. The 90th-percentile writing score was 205 for twelfth-graders.
These two percentile results refer to different grades and different ends of the reported distribution. The eighth-grade 10th percentile identifies a score at the lower portion of the eighth-grade distribution, while the twelfth-grade 90th percentile identifies a score near the upper portion of the twelfth-grade distribution. They should not be subtracted to create a single spread measure, because the supplied figures do not provide matching percentiles for the same grade.
The percentile values also should not be treated as achievement-level cut scores. The achievement-level shares and percentile scores are separate ways of describing the 2011 results. One reports the percentage of students in or above named performance categories; the other locates a score within a grade-specific distribution.
Taken together, the available statistics describe a national writing assessment with equal overall average scale scores of 150 for grades 8 and 12, different subgroup averages, and achievement-level shares that were close but not identical across grades. Every result above is limited to the measurement period and geography reported by the named 2011 sources; no current estimate or forecast is represented.