The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) U.S. History Assessment measures the U.S. history knowledge and skills of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. According to the U.S. History Framework (1.22MB PDF) developed by the National Assessment Governing Board, the assessment should be organized around three components: Periods of U.S. History, Themes in U.S. History, and Ways of Knowing and Thinking about U.S. History.
For the first component, eight chronological periods were used in developing the assessment to ensure appropriate chronological coverage. The periods focus attention on several major eras of U.S. history and overlap at times. The eight periods are as follows:
- Era 1 – Beginnings to 1607
- Era 2 – Colonization, Settlement, and Communities (1607 to 1763)
- Era 3 – The Revolution and the New Nation (1763 to 1815)
- Era 4 – Expansion and Reform (1801 to 1861)
- Era 5 – Crisis of the Union: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850 to 1877)
- Era 6 – The Development of Modern America (1865 to 1920)
- Era 7 – Modern America and the World Wars (1914 to 1945)
- Era 8 – Contemporary America (1945 to present)
All of the content in the above pages is also available in PDF form in the Document Archive.