A national commission formed to review the future of the 12th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has recommended that the nation's primary barometer of student performance should expand dramatically to provide mandatory state results on the achievement of 12th graders and to measure their readiness for college, employment, and the military. Often known as "the nation's report card," the congressionally financed program provides the country's best measure of student achievement in grades 4, 8, and 12. Even though all states must take part in NAEP reading and math tests in grades 4 and 8 every two years, participation in the 12th grade test is voluntary, and, until now, it has produced results only at the national level. In some sense, the 12th grade assessment is even more important than those in earlier grades, said Michael T. Nettles, a co-chairman of the commission and a member of the governing board, "because it is the final signal that we get about elementary and secondary education and its quality." Making participation in the state NAEP mandatory for grade 12 in reading and mathematics also would require action by Congress, including significantly more money, although the costs of the proposals have yet to be estimated. Growing concerns about high schools and about rates of college retention and remediation, however, indicate that the creation of a nationwide measure of college readiness could prove timely.